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ENGLISH FARMING 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
ENGLISH FARMING 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 BY 
 
 ROWLAND E. PROTHERO 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 "Writing and plonghing are two different talents ; and 
 he that writes well must have spent in his studj that 
 time which is necessary to be spent in the fields by him 
 who will be master of the art of cultivating them." 
 
 JlTTHRO TCLL. 
 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NSW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 
 1912 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 English Farming Past and Present is based on an article which 
 appeared in the Quarterly Review for 1885. The article was 
 subsequently expanded into a book, published in 1888 by Messrs. 
 Longman under the title of The Pumeers and Progress of English 
 Farming. 
 
 The book has been out of print for twenty years. Written with 
 the confidence of comparative youth and inexperience, it expressed 
 as certainties many opinions which might now be modified, if 
 not withdrawn. But its motives were two convictions, which time 
 has rather strengthened than weakened. One was, that the small 
 number of persons who owned agricultural land might some day 
 make England the forcing-bed of schemes for land-nationalisation, 
 which countries, where the ownership of the soil rested on a more 
 democratic basis, repudiated as destructive of all forms of private 
 property. The other was, that a considerable increase in the number 
 of peasant ownerships, in suitable hands, on suitable land, and in 
 suitable localities, was socially, economically, and agriculturally 
 advantageous. 
 
 Since 1888, the whole field of economic history has been so care- 
 fully and skilfully cultivated, that another work on a branch of 
 the subject might appear superfluous. But there still seemed to 
 be room for a consecutive history of English agriculture, written 
 from a practical point of view, and tracing the influence of the 
 progress of the industry on the social conditions of those engaged 
 in its pursuit. Great economic changes have resulted from small 
 alterations in the details of manufacturing processes. Similar 
 changes may often be explained by some little-noticed alterations 
 in farming practice. The introduction of the field-cultivation of 
 turnips, for example, was as truly the parent of a social revolution 
 as the introduction of textile machinery. The main object of 
 The Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, and, in greater 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 detail, of English Fwrming Past and Present, is to suggest that 
 advances in agricultural skill, the adoption of new methods, the 
 application of new resources, the invention of new implements, 
 have been, under the pressure of national necessities: powerful 
 instruments in breaking up older forms of rural society, and in mould- 
 ing them into their present shape. 
 
 Students of economic and social questions — and at the present 
 day most people are interested in these subjects — will decide 
 whether the influence of these simple and natural causes hae been 
 greater or less than is suggested. Even those who consider that 
 their importance is exaggerated, may find in the record of their 
 progress a useful commentary on the political explanations which 
 they themselves prefer to adopt. The book may still serve another 
 purpose. It touches rural life at many different points and at 
 many different stages. Dwellers in the country are surrounded 
 by traces of older conditions of society. They may perhaps find, 
 through English Pojrming Past and Present, a new interest in piecing 
 together the fragments of an agricultural past, and in reconstructing, 
 as in one of the fashionable occupations of the day, a picture of the 
 Middle Ages or of the eighteenth century in the midst of their 
 own familiar surroundings. 
 
 Now that the book is in print and on the eve of publication, I 
 feel more acutely than ever the disadvantages under which it has 
 been prepared. English Farming Past and Present is the by-product 
 of a life occupied in other pursuits than those of Uterature. It has 
 been impossible to work upon it for any continuous period of time. 
 Written in odd half-hours, it has been often laid aside for weeks 
 and even months. My thanks are therefore due, in more abundant 
 measure, to Professor Ashley, Sir Ernest Clarke, and Mr. H. Trus- 
 tram Eve, who have kindly read the proof-sheets and helped me 
 with corrections, and above all to Mr. G. H. Holden, who has also 
 verified the references and prepared the Index. 
 
 ROWLAND E. PROTHERO. 
 
 SejOetnber 6, 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM OP PABMING. 
 
 Virgin soils : traces of sites of early villages : " urild field-grass " husbandry ; 
 the permanent division of pasture from tillage ; manors and trcule-guilds ; 
 origin of manors ; the thirteenth century manor and village ; divisions 
 of lemd according to differences of tenure ; villages isolated and self- 
 sufiScing ; importance of labour-rents in the economy of a manor ; the 
 cultivation of the demesne ; the crops grown ; the live-stock ; miscel- 
 laneous produce ; the manorial coinrts : the social grades among the 
 villagers ; the system of open-field farming ; the arable land ; the meadows ; 
 the hams ; the pasture conunons ; the prevalence and permanence of 
 the open-field system ; the domestic industries of the village. Pp. 1-30 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE BREAK-UP OP THE MANOR. 1300-1485. 
 
 Great landlords as farmers : horrors of winter scarcity : gradual decay of 
 the manorial system and the increased struggle for life : aspects of the 
 change : conunon rights over cultivat«d and uncultivated land : tendency 
 towards separate occupation : substitution of labour-rents for money- 
 rents ; the Black Death ; Labour legislation, and its efiect ; Manor of 
 Castle Combe and Berkeley Estates ; new relations of landlords and 
 tenants substituted for old relations of feudal lords and dependents ; 
 tenant-farmers and free laboiu'ers ; leases and larger farms ; increase of 
 separate occupations : William Paston and Hugh Latimer ; wage-earning 
 labourers ; voluntary surrender of holdings ; freedom of movement and 
 of contract. Pp. 31-54 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PARMING POR PROFIT: PASTURE AND SHEEP- 
 GRAZING. 1485-1558. 
 
 The passing of the Middle Ages : enclosures in the sixteenth and eighteenth 
 centuries compared ; the commercial impulse and its results ; conversion 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 of tillage to pasture : endosurea and depopulation : legislation against 
 enclosures ; literaiy attack on enclosures ; the practical defence of en- 
 closures : larger farms in separate occupation : loss of employment ; 
 enclosures equitably arranged, or enforced by tyranny ; legal powers of 
 landowners ; open-field f Eumers not the chief sufierers by enclosures ; 
 scarcity of employment and rise in prices ; the new problem of poverty : 
 the ranks of vagrants ; the Elizabethan fraternity of vagabonds. 
 
 Pp. 56-77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 Paternal despotism : restoration of the purity of the coinage ; a definite 
 commercial policy : revival of the wool trade : new era of prosperity 
 among landed gentry and occupiers of land : a time of adversity for small 
 landowners and wage-earning labourers : Statute of Apprentices ; hiring 
 fairs ; growth of agricultural literature : Fitzherbert and Tusser : their 
 picture of Tudor farming : defects of the open-field system : experience of 
 the value of enclosures ; improvement in farming : Bamaby Googe ; 
 Sir Hugh Plat : progress in the art of gardening. Pp. 78-102 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION. 1603-1660. 
 
 FARMING UNDER THE FIRST STEWARTS AND THE 
 COMMONWEALTH. 
 Promise of agricultural progress checked by the Civil War : agricultural 
 writers and their suggestions : Sir Richard Weston on turnips ajid clover : 
 conservatism of English farmers ; their dislike to book-farming not un- 
 reasonable : unexhausted improvements discussed ; Walter Blith on 
 drainage : attempts to drain the fens in the eastern counties ; the resist- 
 ance of the fenmen : new views on commons : Winstanley's claims : 
 enclosures advocated as a step towards agricultural improvement. 
 
 Pp. 103-129 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLXJTION. 
 1660-1700. 
 
 WorUdge's Syttema Agriciitturae (1669) : improvements suggested by agri- 
 cultural writers ; tyranny of custom ; contempt for book-farming ; slow 
 progress in farming skill ; general standard low ; horses, cattle, sheep, 
 tmd pigs in the seventeenth century ; want of leaders ; growing influence 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 of landowners ; the finance of the Restoration, and the abolition of 
 military tenures ; legislation to promote agricultmre ; Gregory King on 
 the State and Condition of England and Wales in 169B : the distribution 
 of population and wealth. Pp. 130-147 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 1700-1760. 
 
 Agricultural progress in the eighteenth century ; enclosures necessary to 
 advance ; advocates and opponents of the enclosing movement ; area 
 of uncultivated land and of land cultivated in open-fields ; defects of the 
 open-field system as a method of farming ; pasture commons as adjuncts 
 to open-field holdings ; the necessary lead in agricultural progress given 
 by large landowners and large farmers ; procedure in enclosures by Act 
 of Parliament : varying dates at which districts have been enclosed : 
 influence of soil and climate in breaking up or maintaining the open-field 
 system : the East Midland and North Eastern group of counties : improved 
 methods and increased resources of farming ; Jethro Tull the " greatest 
 individual improver " ; Lord Townshend's influence on Norfolk husbandry. 
 
 Pp. 148-175 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STOCK-BREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL. 
 
 1725-1795. 
 
 Necessity for improving the Uve-stock of the country ; sheep valued for 
 their wool, cattle for power of draught or yield of milk ; beef and mutton 
 the growing need : Robert Bakewell the agricultural opportunist ; his 
 experiments with the Black Horse, the Leicester Longhoms, and the New 
 I«icesteiB ; rapid progress of stock-breeding : sacrifice of wool to mutton. 
 
 Pp. 176-189 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ARTHUR YOUNG AND THE DIFFUSION OF 
 KNOWLEDGE. 1760-1800. 
 
 The counties distinguished for the best farming : Hertfordshire, Essex, Suflolk, 
 Norfolk, Leicestershire : the low general standard ; Arthur Young ; his 
 crusade against bad farming, and the hindrances to progress ; waste 
 land ; the " Goths and Vandals " of open-field farmers : want of capital 
 and education ; insecurity of tenure ; prejudices and traditional practices ; 
 impassable roads ; rapid development of manufacture demands a change 
 of agricultural front : Young's advocacy of capitalist landlords and large 
 tenant-farmers. Pp. 190-206 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAEGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS. 
 1780-1813. 
 
 Agricultural enthusiasm at the close of the eighteenth century ; high prices 
 of agricultural produce ; the causes of the advance ; increased demand 
 and cessation of foreign supplies ; the state of the currency ; rapid advance 
 of agriculture on the new lines of capitalist farming ; impulse given to 
 enclosing movement and the introduction of improved practices ; Davy's 
 liCctures on Agricultural Chemistry ; the work of large landlords : Coke 
 of Norfolk. Pp. 207-223 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 1793-1815. 
 
 Condition of open-field arable land and pasture commons as described by the 
 Reporters to the Board of Agriculture, 1793-1816; (1) The North emd 
 North- Western District ; (2) West MidlEuid and Sonth-Westem District 
 (3) South-Eastem and Midland District ; (4) Eastern and North-Eastem 
 District ; (S) the Fens ; the cumulative effect of the evidence ; procedure 
 under private Enclosure Acts ; its defects and cost ; the General enclosure 
 Act of 1801 ; the Inclosure Commissioners ; the new Board of Agriculture. 
 
 Pp. 224-252 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS. 
 
 Difficulty in deciding on the good or bad influence of the Com Laws ; restric- 
 tions^on home as well as on foreign trade in com ; gradual abandonment of 
 the attempt to seciue just prices by legislation ; means adopted to steady 
 prices ; prohibition both of exports and of imports : the bounty on home- 
 grown com ; the system established in 1670 and 1689 lasts till 1816 ; its 
 general efiect ; influence of seasons from 1689 to 1764, and from 1766 to 
 1816 ; difficulty of obtaining foreign supplies during the Napoleonic wars ; 
 practical monopoly in the home market : small margin of home supply 
 owing to growth of population ; exaggerated effect on prices of good or 
 bad harvests ; protection after 1815 ; demand by agriculturists for fair 
 profits ; changed conditions of supply ; repeal of the Com Laws, 1846. 
 
 Pp. 263-274 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HIGHWAYS. 
 
 Di£Sculties of communicatioii ; influence of natiual waterways on inland 
 trade ; artificial waterways and canal construction ; Roman roads ; 
 mediaevtd road-repair : roads in Tudor times ; introduction of turnpikes 
 at the Restoration ; condition of eighteenth century roads ; failure of 
 statutory labour ; rival theories of Telford and M'Adam ; extinction of 
 turnpike trusts ; highway rates ; main roads. Pp. 275-289 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 THE RURAL POPULATION. 1780-1813. 
 
 Efiect of enclosures on the rural population ; no necessary reduction in the 
 nnmber of smtill owners, but rather an increase ; consolidation of farms, 
 either by purchase from small owners, or by throwing tenancies together ; 
 the strict letter of the law ; small occupiers become landless labourers ; 
 depoptdation of villages when tillage was abandoned for pasture ; scarcity 
 of employment in open-field villages ; the literary controversy ; the mate- 
 rial injury inflicted upon the rural poor by the loss of the conunons ; no 
 possible equivalent in cash-value : the moral injury ; the simultaneous 
 decay of domestic industries ; the rapid rise after 1790 in the price of 
 provisions ; a substantial advance in agricultural wages. Pp. 290-315 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND THE POOR LAW. 
 
 1813-1837. 
 
 War taxation : peace and beggary ; slow recovery of agriculture ; the harvest 
 of 1813 ; reality and extent of distress ; the fall of prices ; bankruptcies 
 of tenant-farmers ; period of acute depression, 1814-36 ; ruin of small 
 owners ; misery of agricultural labourers ; reduction in wages and scarcity 
 of employment ; allowances from the rates ; general pauperisation : the 
 new Poor Law, 1834, and its administration. Pp. 316-331 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 The incidence of tithes under the old law ; the historical origin of tithes ; 
 a free-will offering ; a customary payment ; the appeal to conscience ; 
 
»i CONTENTS 
 
 ecclesiastical penalties for non-payment ; a legal liability : tithes as 
 parochial endowments ; the Reformation ; the collection of tithes in 
 kind unpopular and expensive to tithe-owners ; substituted forms of 
 payment ; the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 ; its object and meu^hinery. 
 
 Pp. 332-34S 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 HIGH FARMING. 1837-1874. 
 
 Condition of agriculture in 1837 ; current explanation of the distress ; pre- 
 paration for a new start in farming ; legislative changes ; development of 
 a railway system ; Uve-stock in 1837 ; the general level of farming ; 
 foundation of the Koyal Agricultural Society ; notable improvements, 
 1837-74 ; extension of drainage ; piuchase of feeding stufis ; discovery 
 of artificial fertilisers ; mechanical improvements and inventions ; Repeal 
 of the Com Laws ; the golden age from 1863 to the end of 1862 ; rapid 
 progress in the " Fifties " ; pedigree mania in stock-breeding. 
 
 Pp. 346-373 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 ADVERSITY. 1874-1912. 
 
 Industrial crisis; special difficulties of farmers; the weather, and foreign 
 competition; Richmond Commission, 1879-82; second agricultural crisis, 
 1891-99; Royal Commission of 1893; changes in farming; the day of 
 small things; progress; the aid of science; management of dairy pro- 
 duce ; agricultural education ; effects of present elementary education. 
 
 Pp. 374-392 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1888 and 1912 : political agitation then and now ; the situation contrasted 
 and compared ; the position of landowners ; of tithe-owners ; of tenemt- 
 farmers ; tenant-right as a defence against sales ; agricultural labourers, 
 their slow progress between 1834 and 1884, and their Unions ; their 
 improved position in 1912. The problem of the future ; the reconstruction 
 of village life : the necessity of an agricultural policy : the prospect of 
 increased burdens on agricultural land. Pp. 393-418 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Chronologic^ list of Agricultural Writers down to 1700. Pp. 419-430 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 The Poor Law from 1601 to 1834. Pp. 431-438 
 
 APPENDIX in. Pp. 439-462 
 
 THE CORN LAWS. 
 
 A. Prices of Wheat, 1646-1911 (p. 440). 
 
 B. The Principal Acts relating to the Com Trade (p. 442). 
 
 C. The Assize of Bread (p. 448). 
 
 D. Exports and Imports of Com, 1697-1801 (p. 462). 
 
 E. Bounties paid on Exports of Com, 1697-1766 (p. 462). 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 Tables of Estimates by Gregory TCmg and Charles Davenant. Pp. 463-466 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Estimates of Acreage and Cropping, 1808, 1827. P. 466 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 Collection of Tithes. Pp. 467-469 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 The Agricultural Population according to Census Returns of 1851, 1861, 
 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901. Pp. 460-461 
 
 APPENDIX Vin. 
 
 Imports of Food, 1866-1911. Pp. 462-463 
 
 APPENDIX IX. 
 
 Agricultural Statistics, 1866-1911. Pp. 464-467 
 
 APPENDIX X. 
 
 Agricultural Wages, 1768-70, 1824, 1837, 1860-1, 1860, 1869-70, 1882, 
 1892, 1898, 1910. Pp. 468-470 
 
 IhDII. ' 'c' r V<^V;". Pp. 471-604. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 Virgin soils : traces of sites of early villages : " wild field-grass" husbandry ; 
 the permanent division of pasture from tillage ; manors and trade-guilds ; 
 origin of manors ; the thirteenth century manor and village ; divisions 
 of land according to differences of tenure; villages isolated and self- 
 suiBcing; importance of labour -rents in the economy of a manor; the 
 cultivation of the demesne ; the crops grown ; the live-stock ; miscel- 
 laneous produce ; the manorial courts : the social grades among the 
 villagers ; the system of open-field farming ; the arable land ; the meadows ; 
 the hams ; the pasture coiomons ; the prevalence and permanence of 
 the open-field system ; the domestic industries of the village. 
 
 Impbovements in the art and science of English agriculture were 
 in its infancy dependent on the exhaustion of virgin soils. So 
 long as land was abundant, and the people few or migratory, no 
 rotation of crops was needed. Fresh land could be ploughed each 
 year. It was only when numbers had increased and settlements 
 became permanent, that farmers were driven to devise methods of 
 cultivation which restored or maintained the fertihty of their 
 holdings. 
 
 The progress of farming is recorded in legal documents, in manorial 
 accounts, in agricultural literature. But the story is also often 
 preserved in the external aspect which the land, the villages, or the 
 hedgerows bear in the twentieth century. Dry uplands, where the 
 least labour told the most, were first occupied and cultivated ; 
 rich valleys, damp and filled with forest growth, remained unin- 
 habited and untilled. In spite of difficulties of water-supply, 
 light or sandy soils, or chalky highlands seem to have been the 
 sites of the oldest villages. Patches of the lower slopes of downs 
 were cleared of self-sown beech, and sheltered dips tilled for com ; 
 the high ground behind was grazed by flocks and herds ; the beech 
 woods supplied mast for the swine. SaUsbury Plain, a century 
 ago, bore no sign of human life except the proverbial " thief or 
 
2 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 twain " — ^no contemporary mark of the hand of man but the 
 gallows and their appendages. Yet here are to be found traces of 
 numerous villages. Scored on the sides of the Wiltshire, Dorset, 
 Hampshire, and Sussex downs, " L3niches," " Lynchets," or 
 " Daisses," — grass-grown terraces or benches, — still run horizontally, 
 one above the other, along the slopes. The " elf-furrows " of Soot- 
 land seem to record a similar occupation of hill sites. Local 
 tradition attributes their formation to spade husbandry. Marshall, 
 in 1797, suggested, but only to reject, the operation of the plough. 
 Fifty years later, Poulett Scrope adopted a similar suggestion ; 
 more recently Seebohm revived the same theory. Whatever 
 explanation of the formation of these terraces may be correct, 
 they indeUbly indicate the sites of the earliest settlements, and 
 the nature of the soil first selected for tillage. 
 
 The most primitive form of agriculture is that known as " wild 
 field-grass " husbandry. Joint occupation and joint tillage were 
 probably its characteristics, as they afterwards were of tribal or 
 village communities. The essential difference Ues in this. In the 
 open fields of the village, pasturage and tillage continue to be 
 separated ; grass-land always remains meadow or pasture ; it is 
 never broken up for tillage. Under the more primitive form of 
 convertible husbandry, fresh tracts of grass were successively 
 taken in, ploughed, and tilled for com. As the soil became ex- 
 hausted, they reverted to pasture. Such a practice may belong to 
 some portions of the Celtic race, or to nomadic stages of civilisa- 
 tion. In 1804 Marshall thought that he could trace the " wild 
 field-grass " system in a custom of the south-western counties. In 
 some districts lords of the manor enjoyed rights of letting portions 
 of the grass commons to be ploughed up, cultivated for com, and 
 after two years thrown back into pasture. Over the whole country, 
 from the Tamar to the eastern border of Dorsetshire, he found 
 that open commons, such as the wide expanse of Yarcombe and 
 the hills above Bridport, which from time immemorial had never 
 known the plough, were distinctly marked with the ridge and 
 furrow. Other features of rural life, which a century ago were 
 more pecuUar to the south-west of England, suggest that arable 
 tillage by village communities, if it ever prevailed in this district, 
 was soon exchanged for a system of convertible husbandry better 
 suited to a damp climate. The cultivated land is divided into 
 little patches by the high Devonshire earthwork, or hedge ; the 
 
PERMANENT SEPARATION OF TILLAGE FROM GRASS 3 
 
 large open-fielda of the parish can rarely be traced ; fewer of the 
 inhabitants are collected into villages, more are scattered in single 
 houses or tiny hamlets. Cornwall and parts of Devonshire, like 
 Brittany, are a country of hedges, and of a Celtic race. 
 
 This " wild field-grass " husbandry was displaced in most parts 
 of England by the permanent separation of arable from pasture 
 land. The change indicates an advance towards a more settled 
 state of society, but not necessarily an advance in agricultural 
 practice. The fixed division of tillage and grass may have been 
 introduced into this country by a people accustomed, like the 
 Romans or the Anglo-Saxons, to a drier and less variable climate. 
 If so, it was on this alien system that the agricultural organisation 
 of the mediaeval manor was based. On it also were founded the 
 essential features of those village communities which at one time 
 tilled two-thirds <^ the cultivated soil of England, survived the 
 criticism of Fitzherbert in the sixteenth century, outlived the 
 onslaught of Arthur Young in the eighteenth century, clung to 
 the land in spite of thousands of enclosure acts, were carried to the 
 New World by the Pilgrim Fathers, and linger to this day in, for 
 instance, the Nottinghamshire village of Lexington, where half 
 the land of the parish is tilled by an agricultural association of 
 partners. 
 
 In the early stages of history, the law itself was powerless to 
 protect individual independence or to safeguard individual rights. 
 Agriculture, like other industries, was therefore organised on prin- 
 ciples of graduated dependence and collective responsibility. 
 Mediaeval manors, in fact, resembled trade guilds, and it would 
 be difficult to frame an organisation which, given the weakness of 
 law and the infancy of agriculture, was better calculated to effect 
 the object of mutual help and protection. Conmiunities grouped 
 together in villages were less liable to attack than detached farm- 
 houses and buildings ; common methods of farming facilitated that 
 continuous cultivation which otherwise might have been interrupted 
 by the frequent absence of the able-bodied men on military expedi- 
 tions ; the observance of conunon rules of management may have 
 hindered improvement, but, if strictly enforeed, it also prevented 
 deterioration. Thus the system was suitable to the times and their 
 conditions. 
 
 The origin of the legal relation of manors to village communities 
 lies outside the scope of the present enquiry. It concerns tenures 
 
4 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 rather than systems of cultiTatioii. Two theories explain the rights 
 of manorial lords and rights of common exercised over manorial 
 lands. The legal theory, in its crudest form, is that the lord of the 
 manor is the absolute owner of the soil of his manor, and that rights 
 acquired over any part of it by freeholders and tenants are acquired 
 against him, and originate in his grant or sufEerance. The historical 
 theory, stated baldly, is that self-governing, independent com- 
 munities of freemen originally owned the land in common, and were 
 gradually reduced to dependence by one of their members, or by a 
 conqueror, who became the lord of the soil. There seems to be no 
 doubt that individual ownership belongs to on earlier stage of 
 civilisation than communal ownership. But if the second theory is 
 correct, the legal position of the lord of the manor represents a 
 series of encroachments, which transformed the Mark of freemen 
 into the Mark of bondmen, and changed the rights of the villagers 
 over the wastes of the district into customary rights of user over 
 the lord's soil. Questions of the origin and antiquity of manors, 
 and the extent to which they prevailed before the Norman Conquest, 
 have been to a great degree reopened by recent studies. Seebohm, 
 for example, practically supported the legal view by historical 
 argument. He traced the feudal manor to the Roman villa, with 
 the lord's estate as the centre round which clustered cultivators, 
 who tilled the soil under servile or semi-servile conditions. This 
 system, according to his view, was taken over by the Anglo^axon 
 invaders, and the agrarian results of the Teutonic occupation may 
 be summed up in the transfer of the Roman villa, with its servile 
 labourers, to the conquerors. As a complete explanation of social 
 development the legal theory, in spite of this historical support, 
 seems inadequate. But whether the early stages of village com- 
 munities reveal a movement from serfdom or originated in freedom, 
 whether their relations to manors represent encroachments by the 
 lord or advances by the serf, whether the rights of agrarian associa- 
 tions underlay, or were acquired against, the manorial rights of the 
 feudal baron — ^whether, in other words, the land-law of the noble 
 became the land-law of the people, or the reverse — ^is here immaterial. 
 Roughly and generally speaking, the immediate lordship of the land 
 farmed by a village community, including the wastes and commons, 
 was, after the Norman Conquest, vested in the lord of the manor, 
 subject to regulated rights enjoyed by its members. 
 On a manorial estate, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
 
THE MANORIAL BUILDINGS 5 
 
 only the church, the manor-house, and perhaps the mill, rose out 
 conspicuously. There were no detached, isolated farm-houses ; but 
 the remaining buildings of the vUlage, grouped together in a sort 
 of street, were the homes of the peasantry, who occupied and 
 cultivated the greater part of the land. At some Uttle distance 
 from the village stood the manor hall or grange, with its out- 
 buildings, garden, and fishpond, surrounded by clay-built walls 
 with thatched tops. The style and extent of the buildings depended 
 on whether the house was the permanent or occasional residence 
 of the lord ; they also varied with the importance of the manor, 
 and the wealth of its owner. The house itself was built either of 
 timber and clay, or of stone, for brickmaldng was still a forgotten 
 art. It often consisted of a single hall, plastered inside, open to 
 the roof, and earth-floored, which served as court of justice, dining- 
 room, and bedchamber. At one end of the central room was a 
 stable ; at the other a chamber, kitchen, or larder. Below one 
 part of the ground floor was a cellar ; above another part was, 
 perhaps, a " solar," or parlour, approached by an outside staircase. 
 If the manor was sufficiently important, there were probably added 
 a detached building for the farm servants, and a chamber for the 
 bailiff. The outbuildings consisted of bake-house, stables, dairy, 
 cattle and poultry houses, granary, and dove-cote. Some of the 
 oldest specimens of domestic architecture are granaries, like Hazel- 
 ton or Calcot in Gloucestershire, or the dove-cotes which still in 
 country districts mark the former sites of manor-houses. Repairs 
 of the walls and buildings of the manor-house were among the 
 labour services of the tenantry, who dug, tempered, and daubed 
 the clay, cut and carted the timber, and gathered the straw or reeds, 
 for thatching. Where technical skill was needed they were aided 
 by craftsmen, who either held land in reward for their special 
 services, or, on the smaller manors, were hired for the occasion. 
 
 Tufts of trees, conspicuous ia the hedgeless expanse of arable 
 land by which they were surrounded, marked the sites of villages, 
 as they still do in the high table-land of the Pays de Gaux. Under 
 their shelter clustered the homes of the peasantry, clay-walled,^ 
 open-roofed, earth-floored, chimneyless sheds, covered in with, 
 straw or reeds or heather, and consisting of a single room. Here» 
 divided by a hurdle or wattle partition, lived, not only the human 
 inhabitants, but their cows, pigs, and poultry. Close by were the 
 tofts and crofts of the open-field farmers, each with its miniature 
 
6 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 hay-riok and straw-stack ; and the cottages and curtilages of the 
 cottagers, " fencM al aboute with stikkes." Here were the scanty 
 gardens in which grew the vegetables, few but essential to the health 
 of a population which hved almost entirely on salted meat and 
 fish — often half-cured and half-putrid. These homesteads were in 
 early times the only property held by members of the township in 
 exclusive separate occupation. They were also, at first, the only 
 permanent enclosures on the commonable land. But, as agri- 
 culture advanced, pasture paddocks (" gerstuns " or " garstons ") 
 for rearing stock, calves, or fattening beasts, or for the working 
 oxen, which could not endure his " warke to labour all daye, and 
 then to be put to the commons or before the herdsman," were 
 enclosed in the immediate neighbourhood of the village. In these 
 enclosures, or " happy garstons " as they were called at Aston 
 Boges, were held the village merrymakings, the rush-bearings, the 
 May games, the summerings at St. John's Eve, the pubUc break- 
 fasts, and the distribution of bread and ale in Bogation week. 
 
 The land comprised in a thirteenth century manor was generally 
 divided into four main portions, and, speaking generally, was cul- 
 tivated on co-operative principles ; the demesne or " board " 
 land, reserved for the lord's personal use, surrounding the manor- 
 house, and forming the smaller portion of the whole ; the free land, 
 occupied by freemen holding by military service, or by some 
 form of fixed rent in money or in kind ; the unfree land, occupied 
 by various classes of bondmen, holding by produce-rents and 
 labour services which varied with the custom of the manor ; the 
 common pastures and untilled wastes on which the tenants of the 
 manor and the occupiers of certain cottages, in virtue of their 
 holdings, fed their Uve stock. This right of pasture must be 
 clearly distinguished from those rights which, at certain seasons of 
 the year, were exercised by the associated partners over the cul- 
 tivated arable and meadow lands of the village farm.^ Thus the 
 lord's demesne, using the word in its narrower sense, might be 
 kept in hand, or let on lease to free or unfree tenants, or thrown 
 
 1 By " village faim " is meant the land in the village which was occupied 
 by an association of partners, who were bound by the same rules of cultiva- 
 tion, held inteimized strips of arable land over which at certain seasons the 
 whole body exercised common rights, annually received fdlotted portions of 
 meadow for hay, and enjoyed, in virtue of their arable holdings, the right to 
 turn out stock on the common pasture. This open-field system of farming 
 is described pp. 23-27. 
 
LABOUR MORE NEEDED THAN MONEY 7 
 
 into the village farm, or dealt with as to portions in each of these 
 three ways. But whether the land was treated as a compact 
 whole, like a modem home-farm, or whether the landlord, as a 
 shareholder in the village association, allowed it to be cut up into 
 strips and intermixed with other holdings, the demesne was mainly 
 cultivated by the labour services of the un£ree peasantry. The 
 rest of the land of the manor, forming the larger portion of the 
 cultivated area, was farmed by village partners, whose rent chiefly 
 consisted in the labour, more or less definite in amount, which they 
 were obliged to perform on the lord's demesne. 
 
 In this method of cultivating a manorial estate there are many 
 contrasts with the modem system. The three-fold division of the 
 agricultural interests into landlord, tenant farmer, and wage- 
 eaming labourer was practically unknown. Landowner and tenant- 
 labourer owned, occupied, and cultivated the soil, and the gradual 
 relaxation of the labourer's tenure of the land, and the inter- 
 position of the tenant farmer between the two existing classes, 
 simi up the early social history of English farming. Li the thirteenth 
 century, muscles were more essential to the prosperity of the land- 
 lord than money rents. The cultivators of the soil grew their 
 produce, not for sale, but for their own consumption. Each manor 
 or village was isolated and self-sufficing. Only in the neighbour- 
 hood of towns was there any market for the produce of the farm. 
 Few manufactured articles were bought. Salt, tar, iron (bought in 
 four-pound bars), mill-stones, steel for tipping the edges of imple- 
 ments, canvas for the sajls of the wind-mill, cloths for use in the 
 dairy, in the malthouse, or in the grange, together with the dresses 
 of the inhabitants of the hall, and a few vessels of brass, copper, or 
 earthenware, satisfied the simple needs of the rural population. 
 Hands were therefore more required than money on manorial 
 estates. If the manor was well stocked with labour, the land paid ; 
 when the stock of labour shrank, the profits dwindled. It was in 
 order to retain a sufficient supply of labour on the land that bond- 
 men were restrained from leaving the manor to assume the tonsure 
 of the clerk or the flat cap of the apprentice, to become soldiers 
 or to work outside the manor. Even their marriages were carefuUy 
 controlled by licences. It was, again, in order to exact and super- 
 vise the due performance of labour services that the lord of the 
 manor maintained his large official stafi — his seneschal, if he owned 
 several manors, his steward, his bailifl, and the various foremen of 
 
8 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 the laboureis, such as the reeve, the hayward, the head-reaper, 
 and the granger. But with the thirteenth century begins the 
 practice of keeping estate accounts, in which the amount and cash 
 values of the labour services are entered. Thus the uncertainty 
 of villein-tenure was modified, and the means were prepared for 
 commuting obligations to work into their money equivalents. 
 Already the causes were operating which hastened the process, and 
 changed agriculture from a self-sufficing industry into a commercial 
 system of farming for profit. Population was increasing ; trade 
 was growing ; urban classes, divorced from rural pursuits, were 
 forming ; means of communication were improving ; money taxes 
 took the place of personal services ; the standard of living rose ; 
 coin was needed, not only to meet the demands of the government,, 
 but to buy the luxuries of more civilised life. 
 
 The obligations of the peasantry to cultivate the demesne varied, 
 not only with local customs, but with the seasons. Their most 
 important services were the autumnal, Lenten, and summer plough- 
 ings on the three fields, into which the arable land of the demesne 
 was generally divided. The crops grown were, as winter seeds, 
 wheat and rye, and, as spring seeds, oats, barley, beans, peas, or 
 vetches. In smaller quantities, flax, hemp, and saffron were locally 
 raised in separate plots. Boots, clover and artificial grasses were 
 still unknown. Rotations of crops, as they are now understood, were 
 therefore impossible. The soil was rested by fallowing the one- 
 half, or the one-third, of the arable land required by the two or 
 the three course system. Red rivet, or a lost white variety, was 
 then recommended for wheat-sowing on light land, red or white 
 pollard for heavy soils, " gray " wheat for clays. But on the 
 tenants' land, rye was the chief grain crop. It is the hardiest, 
 grows on the poorest soils, makes the toughest straw. Rye was then 
 the bread-stuff of the English peasantry, as it still is in Northern 
 Europe. The flour of wheat and rye were often mixed together, 
 and bread made in this form was called " maslin." ^ It retained 
 its moisture longer than pure wheaten bread, and, as Fynes Moryson 
 
 ^ Lat. mixtUio ; " mestilon,"- anon, author of Hoeebonderie (thirteenth 
 century) ; " miscellin," Harrison (sixteenth century) ; " massledine," Henry 
 Best (1641); "mashelson," Yorkshire (1797). In The CmrvpUat Fanmr 
 (1760) it is called " maislen " ; but the writer says that it is " ill husbcmdry 
 to grow wheat and rye together." Fitzherbert (1623) reconunends rye and 
 wheat to be sown together as the surest crop to grow and good for the husband- 
 man's household. But he does not believe in the slowness of rye in ripening. 
 
THE THREE PLOUGHINGS 9 
 
 says in his Itinerary (1617), was used by labourers because it " abode 
 longer in the stomach and was not so soon digested with their 
 labour." Wheat and rye were sometimes sown together. But as 
 rye was slower to lipen, the better practice was to sow it alone and 
 earlier, lest, as Tusser (1557) writes, " rye tarty wheat, till it sheds 
 as it stands." The mixed cultivation was, however, recommended 
 as a cure for mildew, and for this reason prevailed in Yorkshire 
 in 1797. Barley was ihe drink-corn, as rye was the bread-corn, 
 of the Middle Ages. It was of two kinds. The head with two rows 
 of grain seems to have been used exclusively for brewii^ ; the 
 coarser four-rowed head, known as " drage," was used partly for 
 brewing, partly for feeding pigs and poultry. Barley and oats 
 were often sown together. In the North, oats were extensively 
 cultivated ; but they were grey-awned, tbdn, and poor. In the 
 Midlands and South of England they were comparatively rare on 
 tenants' land. 
 
 The fallows were three times ploughed in preparation for wheat 
 and rye. The seed began to be sown after Lammas Day (August 
 12),^ and at latest was completed by Hallowmas (November 1). 
 For oats, beans, and peas, the land was ploughed and the seed sown 
 between the Feast of Purification (February 2) and Easter. Oats 
 were said to be best sown in " the dust of March." " On St. 
 Valentine's Day cast beans in clay. But on St. Chad sowe good 
 or bad." That is to say, the time for sowing beans was between 
 February 14 and March 2. Barley came last. The land was 
 ploughed and sown between Hoke-tide (the third Tuesday after 
 Easter) and Pentecost. The ploughings were performed, and the 
 teams suppUed and driven, partly by the servants of the demesne, 
 partly by the tenants. Sometimes ploughmen seem to have been 
 hired. The harrowings were similarly provided for, and the 
 harrow, often a hawthorn tree, weighted on its upper side with 
 logs, was suppUed from the lord's waste. Here also harrowers 
 seem to have been sometimes specially hired. In this case they 
 possibly provided their own home-constructed implements with 
 sharp points or teeth like the modem type of harrow. When the 
 fallows were first broken up, as was then the practice, in March, 
 or when the land was prepared for barley, the grotmd was often 
 so hard that the clods had to be subsequently broken. For this 
 
 * The Julian calendar was in force. To make the dates correspond mth 
 those of the present Gregoriem calendar, twelve days have to be added. 
 
10 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 purpose the ploughman, holding the principal hale of the plough 
 in his left hand, carried in his right a " clotting beetle," or 
 " maul," such as that which is depicted in the Cotton MSS. 
 A " Dover-court beetle " was a necessary tool in the days of 
 Tusser ; and Plot, whose Natural History of Oxfordshire appeared 
 in the seventeenth century, reconmiends its use after the land was 
 harrowed. 
 
 The amount of wheat, rye, beans, and peas usually sown to the 
 acre was only two bushels ; and of oats and, strangely enough, of 
 barley, four bushels. The yield of wheat rarely exceeded five- 
 fold, or ten bushels to the acre ; that of the leguminous crops 
 ranged from three- to six-fold, or from six to twelve bushels to the 
 acre ; that of oats and barley varied from three- to four-fold, or 
 from twelve to sixteen bushels to the acre. Considerable care was 
 exercised in the choice and change of the seed-corn, which was 
 often one of the produce-rents of the tenants. On the Berkeley 
 Estates (1321) the seed was changed every second or third year ; 
 the upland com being sown in the vale, and vice versa. Wheat 
 rarely followed a spring grain crop. If it did, it may be supposed 
 that it received the greater part of the manure mixed with earth, 
 which the tenants carted from the demesne yard, and spread on 
 the manor farm. From the point of view of manuring the land, 
 the right of folding was a valuable privilege. Tenants, unless they 
 purchased a licence to fold their sheep on the land they occupied, 
 were often obliged to feed and fold their flocks on the lord's land 
 for fallow or in his own fold. Sometimes the herbage of the lord's 
 land for fallow was sold to a sheep-master to be depastured on the 
 land. Lime wa:S used on heavy clays, or to destroy moss. The 
 value of marl in improving the texture of sandy soils and some 
 kinds of clays was appreciated. On the Berkeley Estates it was 
 first used in the fortieth year of Henry III. But the cost was 
 excessive. " Marl," says Fitzherbert,^ " is an excellent manure, 
 and . . . exceeding chargeable." Sea sand was used near the coast ; 
 soot and even street refuse were employed on home farms. Drain- 
 age, except in the form of ridging the surface of wet soils, was 
 rarely practised. Sometimes, as Palladius recommends (Book VI. 
 St. 6), shallow trenches filled with gravel, stones, or hollow alder 
 stems, and turfed over, were cut, and, on the manors belonging to 
 
 1 Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry, book i. c. 20 (ed. 1698). For agri- 
 cultural literature, see Chronological List in Appendix I. 
 
MEDIAEVAL HARVESTINGS 11 
 
 the Collegiate body of St. Paul's Cathedral, it was one of the labour 
 services to clean out the ditches. But the science of deep drainage 
 made little progress before the nineteenth century. Beans were 
 often dibbed ; but all other seed was sown broadcast. The actual 
 labour of sowing was probably performed by the lord's bailiff, or 
 the hayward, with his own hand, as, at the beginning of the last 
 century, all seed was sown by the farmer himself. The hoeing and 
 the weeding of the crops were among the labour services of the 
 tenants. In cleaning land the maxim was ancient : 
 
 "Who weeda in May - 
 Throws sU away," 
 
 and the crops were generally weeded in June or the first few days 
 of July. Walter of Henley^ (thirteenth century) gives St. John's 
 Day (June 24) as the earliest date for cleaning the land. " If," 
 he says, " you cut thistles fifteen days or eight before St. John's 
 Day, for each one will come two or three." On a Suffolk manor, 
 in the fourteenth century, sixty " sarclers," or weeders, were 
 employed in one day, armed, if the weather was dry, with a hook 
 or forked stick, and, in wet weather, with nippers. 
 
 The meadows of the demesne were mown, and the hay made, 
 carted, and put on the manorial ricks, by the labour services of 
 the tenants. They also reaped, bound, gathered, loaded, carted, 
 and stacked the com crops in the lord's grange. They also threshed 
 the com, and winnowed-it, unless, as was sometimes the case, the 
 duty of winnowing fell to the dairjrwoman, or " Daye." If any 
 com was sent for sale to the markets, it was carried there by the 
 labour services of the tenants, in their carts drawn by their teams. 
 Harvestings in the Middle Ages were picturesque scenes of bustle 
 and of merriment among the thousands to whom they meant the 
 return of plenty. On 250 acres at Hawstead in Suffolk, towards the 
 close of the fourteenth century, were grown wheat, oats, barley, 
 peas, and " bolymong," a mixture of tares and oats. The grain 
 crops were cut and housed in two days. On the first day appeared 
 thirty tenants to perform their " bedrepes," and 244 reapers ; on 
 the second day, the thirty tenants and 239 reapers, pitchers, and 
 stackers. Many of this assembly were the smaller peasantry on 
 the manor ; the rest were the lord's farm servants, together with 
 
 ' Walter of Henley's Buabandry, together teith an anonymous Husbandry, 
 Seneschaucie, and Robert Orosaeteste's Rules, ed. E. Lamond, 1890. For 
 agricultural literature, see Clironological List in Appendix I. 
 
12 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 wandering bands of " cookers " or harvesters, who had already begun 
 to travel the country at harvest time. A cook, brewer, and baker 
 were hired to supply dinner at nine and supper at five. Reapers 
 were organised in bands, or "setts," of five. The anonymous author 
 of Hoaebonderie^ (thirteenth century) calculates that each band 
 could reap and bind two acres a day. Barley and oats, as well as 
 peas and beans, were generally mown ; rye and wheat were reaped. 
 But the reaping, as in Roman times, seems to have consisted of 
 two operations : the first was to cut the ears, the second to remove 
 part of the straw for thatching, or to be used as forage for cattle, 
 as Utter for strewing the sheep-house, folds, and yards, or as bedding 
 for men. Often the value of the straw of thin short com hardly 
 paid for the expense of removal, and the stubble was either grazed 
 or burned on the ground, or ploughed in. 
 
 The most important crops of the farm were the com crops of 
 wheat, rye, and barley, which were raised for human food and 
 drink. Their consumption, especially if the lord of the manor 
 lived on the estate, was enormous. Domestic households were 
 considerable, and often only the bailifi was paid money wages. 
 Rations were also allowed to tenants when performing many of 
 their services. Though the manual and team work of the tenants 
 provided most of the labour of the farm, the lord also employed 
 a large permanent stafi of agricultural servants, most of whom were 
 occupied in the care of Uve-stock. Such were the horseman or 
 waggoner, oxherd or ploughman, cowherd, shepherd, swineherd, 
 warrener, and keepers of hawks and dogs, whose wages were mostly 
 paid in kind. There were, besides, other servants in husbandry, 
 hired for special occasions, whose food and drink formed a large 
 portion of their payment. The granary was, therefore, rarely so 
 full that any surplus remained for sale. For such ready-money as 
 he needed, the lord looked mainly to the produce of his live-stock. 
 For their consumption were grown the remaining crops — the hay, 
 beans, peas, and oats ; though oats were not only used for human 
 food, but in some districts were brewed into inferior beer. 
 
 Horse-farms appear in some estate accounts ; but they probably 
 supplied the " great horse " used for military purposes. On an 
 ordinary farm the horses used for farm-work were mostly home- 
 bred, and were divided into cart-horses, and — ^under the names of 
 stotts, " affers," or " avers " — ^plough-horses. Colts, not needed 
 
 1 Hoaebonderie in W(Uter of Henley' » Husbandry, ed. E. Lamond, 1890. 
 
PLOUGH-OXEN 13 
 
 to keep up the supply, were sold. Plough-teams were seldom made 
 up of hoises only ; if hoises were used at all, they were mixed with 
 oxen. But, as a rule, oxen were preferred to horses. Though 
 horses worked more quickly, when the ploughman allowed them to 
 do BO, — ^they pulled less steadily, and sudden strains severely 
 tested the primitive plough-gear. On hard ground they did less 
 work, and only when the land was stony had they any advantage. 
 Economical reasons further explain the preference for oxen. From 
 St. Luke's Day (October 18) to April, both horses and oxen were 
 kept in the stalls. During these twenty-five weeks neither could 
 graze, and Walter of Henley calculates that the winter-keep of a 
 horse cost four times that of an ox. Horses needed more attend- 
 ance ; they required to be rubbed, curried, and dressed. Oxen 
 were less liable to sickness than horses. The harness of the ox, 
 mainly home-made from materials supplied on the estate, was 
 cheaper to provide and repair. Shod only on the forefeet, the 
 shoeing of the ox cost less than that of the horse. When either 
 horse or ox was past work, the profit of the one lay in his hide ; of 
 the other, not only in his hide, but the larder : the ox was " mannes 
 meat when dead, while the hoise is carrion." Great care was 
 taken both of horses and of oxen. Li Seneechaucie^ (thirteenth 
 century) the duties both of the waggoner and oxherd are care- 
 fully defined ; each was expected to sleep every night with his 
 charges. 
 
 Cattle were seldom fatted even for the tables of the rich ; oxen 
 were valued for their power of draught : cows for their milk. It 
 may, indeed, be said that fresh butcher's meat was rarely eaten, 
 and that, if it was, it was almost universally grass-fed. No winter- 
 keep or feeding stuff was available ; not even carrots or parsnips 
 were known. The commons, generally unstinted, carried as much 
 stock as could keep skin and bone together in the winter, and the 
 lord could not only turn out on them his own sheep and cattle, 
 but license strangers for money payments to do the same. Even 
 if the commons were stinted, the margin was too bare to mean 
 abundance. The best pastures were either in the lord's own hands, 
 and were saved by him at the exx>ense of the commons, or were 
 let out to individuals in separate occupations. Even among these 
 superior feeding-grounds, there were few enclosures which would 
 fatten a bullock. At the wane of the summer, the cattle had the 
 ^ In WaUer of Henley's Huabandry, ed. 1900. 
 
14 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 aftennath of the hay meadows, and the stubble and hauhn of the 
 arable lands. During this season they were at their best. They 
 only survived the winter months in a state of semi-starvation on 
 hay, straw, and tree-loppings. It was, therefore, the practice at 
 the end of June to draft the aged cows, worn-out oxen, and tooth- 
 less sheep, or " ci-ones," prepare them as far as possible for the 
 butcher, slaughter them in the autumn, and either eat them fresh 
 or throw them into the powdering tub to be salted for winter con- 
 sumption. " For Easter at Martilmas (November 11) hange up a 
 biefe " is the advice of Tusser. 
 
 The dairy produce was a greater source of money revenue, though 
 the home consumption of cheese must have been very large. But 
 the management was necessarily controlled, like the management 
 of the stock, by the winter scarcity. The yield of a cow during 
 the twenty-four weeks from the middle of April to Michaelmas was 
 estimated at four-fifths of her total annual yield. Six to ten ewes 
 gave as much milk as one cow ; but the best practice was to cease 
 milking ewes at Lammas Day (August 12). Cheese-making formed 
 an important part of the dairywoman's duties, and the purchase 
 of the cloths and utensils used in its manufacture are a serious 
 item in estate accounts. Cheese seems generally to have been 
 made of skim-milk, though superior varieties were doubtless foimd 
 on the lord's table. Most of the butter made in the summer months 
 was either sold, or salted and preserved in pots and barrels for 
 winter use.^ The butter-milk was either drunk, made into curds, 
 or more rarely used to fatten pigs. The curds were eaten with wine 
 or ale ; the whey, vmder the name of " whig," made a cool and 
 wholesome summer drink. During the winter months, milk 
 fetched three times its summer price, and was generally sold. For 
 this, among other reasons, calves were timed to fall before autunm. 
 In the scarce months of winter, the price obtained for milk during 
 eight weeks was supposed to be worth more than the calf. Small 
 open-field farmers must usually have sold their calves as soon as 
 possible. The same practice prevailed on the demesne. The total 
 
 ^ Kogers, noticing that butter was sold by the gallon, seems to have con- 
 cluded that it was melted {Six Centimes of Work and Wages, ed. 1890, pp. 
 94-6). But it would seem from the thirteenth century writings of Walter of 
 Henley and the anonymous author of Hosebonderie, that two pottles of butter 
 made 1 gallon of 7 lbs., 2 gallons made 1 stone ; and 14 stone 1 wey. What- 
 ever inference may be founded on the use of a liquid measure, it is discounted 
 by the use of the pottle and the stone. 
 
SHEEP 15 
 
 number of live-stock, including horses but not including sheep, sold 
 from the manor of Fomcett in thirteen years, between 1272 and 
 1306, waa 152.* Out of this total 99 were calves. The cows 
 of the demesne were under the care of a cowherd, who was required 
 to sleep every night with his charges in the sheds. 
 
 Sheep were the sheet anchor of farming. But it was not for 
 their mutton, or for their milk, or even for their skins, that they 
 were chiefly valued. Already the mediaeval agriculturist took his 
 seat on the wool-sack. As a marketable commodity, both at home 
 and abroad, English long wool always commanded a price. It 
 was less perishable than com, and more easily transported even on 
 the worst of roads. To the Flemish weavers it was indispensable, 
 for Spanish wool could not be used alone, and the supply from 
 Saxony was not as yet developed. The washing and shearing of 
 sheep were among the labour services of the tenantry. Certain 
 districts, especially Shropshire, Leominster, and the Cotswolds, 
 were from very early times famous for the excellence of their wool. 
 So far as its quaUty depended on breed rather than on soil, some 
 care, as evidenced by the higher prices paid for rams, was taken 
 to improve the flocks. From Martinmas to Easter sheep were kept 
 in houses, or in moveable folds of wooden hurdles, thatched at the 
 sides and tops. During these months they were fed on coarse hay 
 or peas-hauhn, mixed with wheaten or oaten straw. For the rest 
 of the year they browsed on the land for fallows, in woodland 
 pastures, or on the sheep conunons. But in the autumn they were 
 not allowed to go on the ground, till the sun had purified the land 
 from the " gelly or matty rime," which was supposed to engender 
 scab. So also they were driven from the damp, low-lying groimds 
 lest they should eat the white water-snails which our ancestors, 
 suspected of breeding the rot. These two diseases made sheep- 
 farming, in spite of its profits, a risky venture. The scab does not 
 seem to have attacked sheep before the latter end of the thirteenth 
 century ; but, from that time forward, the tar-box was essential 
 to every shepherd. The rot is carefully treated by Walter of 
 Henley, if he is the real author of the passage interpolated in the 
 Bodleian manuscript of his work.^ The writer discusses the 
 
 ^ The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor (1086-1566). By Frances 
 Gardiner Davenport, pp. 33-36. 
 
 * WtiUer of Henley, 1890, ed. E. Lamond. The passage is given on pages 
 37-8, and its genuineness is disputed in the Introduction, p. zzii. 
 
16 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 symptoms of the disease. White veins under the eyelids, wool 
 that can be easily pulled away from the tibs, a skin that will not 
 redden when rubbed, are signs of unsoundness. Another sign is 
 when the November hoar-frost melts rapidly on the fleece, for the 
 animal is then sufEering from an imnatural heat. The losses of the 
 flockmasters from the " murrain," to use the generic term for 
 diseases employed by mediaeval writers, were so severe as to create 
 another danger. The minute instructions against fraud given to 
 the official staff show that shepherds not infrequently produced 
 the skin, and explained the disappearance of the carcase by death 
 from disease. "Let no sheep," says the author of Seneschaucie, 
 " be flayn before it be seen and known for what fault it died." The 
 value of the flock made the shepherd one of the most important of 
 farm servants. He was required to be a patient man, " not over- 
 hasty," never to be absent without leave at " fairs, markets, 
 wrestling-matches, wakes, or in the tavern," and always to sleep 
 in the fold together with his dog. Later writers insist on the value 
 of lameness in the shepherd, as a lame man was unlikely to over- 
 drive his sheep. 
 
 Swine were the almost universal hve-stock of rich and poor. As 
 consumers of refuse and scavengers of the village, they would, on 
 sanitary grounds, have repaid their keepers. But mediaeval pigs 
 profited their owners much, and cost them little. It was a Glouces- 
 tershire saying : 
 
 " A swine doth sooner than a cowe 
 Bring an ox to the plough." 
 
 In other words, a pig was more profitable than a cow. For the 
 greater part of the year pigs were expected to pick up their own 
 living. When the wastes and woodlands of a manor were extensive, 
 they were, except during three months of the year, self-supporting. 
 They developed the qualities necessary for taking care of themselves. 
 The ordinary pigs of the Middle Ages were long, flat-sided, coarse- 
 boned, lop-eared, omnivorous animals, whose agility was more 
 valuable than their early maturity. Growth and flesh were the 
 work of time : so also were thickened skin, developed muscles, and 
 increased weight of bone. The styes were often built in the woods, 
 whence the pigs were only brought to feed on the arable land after 
 the crops were cleared, or, at times of exceptional frost, to subsist 
 on the leavings of the threshing-floor. During most months of the 
 year they ranged the woods for roots, wild pears, wild phmis, crab 
 
PIGS AND POULTRY 17 
 
 apples, sloes, haws, beech-mast, and acorns. Only when the sows 
 were farrowing, or when am'TnalH were being prepared for the rich 
 man's table, were they specially fed. Pigs were fatted on inferior 
 com, especially coarse barley, peas, beans, sMm- and bntter-milk, 
 or brewers' grains which were readily obtainable when nearly every 
 household brewed its own barley beer. The amount consumed 
 varied with the purpose intended to be served. The boar was fatted 
 for the feast on ten times the grain bestowed in finishing ordinary 
 animals for conversion into salted pork or smoke-dried bacon. 
 Walter of Henley impUes that some attention was given to breed, 
 as he recommends the use of well-bred boars. But the only quahty 
 on which he insists is that the animal should be able to dig, or, in 
 other words, support itself. Modem ideas of purchasing com for 
 fattening purposes, or of converting into pork or bacon farm-pro- 
 duce for which no ready market was available, scarcely entered 
 into the heads of mediaeval fanners. On the contrary, they tell us 
 that, if pigs were entirely dependent on the crops of the arable 
 land, they could not be kept at a profit, when the wages of the 
 swineherd, the cost of the grain consumed, and the damage done 
 to growing crops had been taken into account. Some trade was, 
 however, carried on in stores. This is proved by the records of 
 Fomcett manor {A Norfolk Manor, 1086-1565), which show that, 
 in years when no pigs were kept, stores were bought and fatted for 
 the larder. 
 
 The poultry yard was under the care of the dairywoman, who 
 sometimes seems to have had the poultry to farm at so much a 
 head. Ducks are not mentioned in any of the mediaeval treatises 
 on farming, though they appear in the Berkeley accounts in 1321 : 
 gnineafowl and turkeys were unknown. But the number of geese 
 and fowls, and, on important estates, of peacocks and swans, was 
 large, and it was swollen by the produce-rents which were often 
 paid in poultry and eggs. The author of Hosebamderie gives minute 
 instructions as to the produce for which the dairywoman ought to 
 account. " Each goose ought to have five goslings a year : " each 
 hen was to answer for 115 eggs and seven chickens, " three of which 
 aa^t to be made capons, and, if there be too many hen chickens, 
 let them be changed for cocks while they are young, so that each 
 hen may answer for three capons and four hens a year, .^d for 
 five geese you must have one gander, and for five hens one cock." 
 Besides the poultry yard, the dove-cote or pigeon-house was a 
 
 B 
 
18 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 source of profit to the lord and of loss to the tenant. Prodigious 
 numbers of pigeons were kept ; not only were they eaten, but 
 their dung was prized as the most valuable of all manures. The 
 privilege of keeping a pigeon-house was confined to manorial lords 
 and jealously guarded, and every manor had its dove-cote. The 
 story of the French Revolution shows how bitterly the peasants 
 resented the plunder of their hard-earned crops by the lord's 
 pigeons. Doubtless many a British peasant in mediaeval times 
 was stirred to the same hostility by the same nuisance. 
 
 To the produce of the crops and the live-stock of the demesne 
 must be added game, rabbits from the " conygarth " or warren, 
 cider from the apples, oil from the nuts, honey and wax from the 
 bee>hives, and sometimes grapes from the vineyards. Bee-keeping 
 was an important feature of agricultural industry. The ancient 
 proverb says : " He that hath sheep, swine, and bees, sleep he, 
 wake he, he may thrive." Honey, besides being the only sugar, 
 was invaluable in the still-room, and in the arts of the apothecary, 
 physician, and " chirui^eon." It was an ingredient in mead and 
 metheglyn. It was used in embalming, in medicines, and in such 
 decoctions as mulse water, oenomel, honey water, rodomel, or 
 quintessence. Wax was not only necessary for the candles of the 
 wealthy, but, like honey, was largely used in mediaeval medicine. 
 Mixed with violets, it was a salve : it was also one of the ingredients 
 of " playsteiB, oyntementes, suppositories, and such like." In 
 some districts of England, vineyards formed part of the equipment 
 of manors ; one was made by Lord Berkeley towards the close of 
 the reign of Edward HE., and his biographer suggests that he 
 learned the " husbandry . . . whilst hee was prisoner in fErance or 
 a Traveller in Spaine." Few great monasteries were without vine- 
 yards, which are mentioned thirty-eight times in Domesday Book. 
 It is not necessary to explain the disappearance of the vine by a 
 change of climate. Wine was then often sweetened with honey 
 and flavoured with blackberries and spices. Unless it came from 
 abroad, it was rarely drunk in its pure state. It would, therefore, 
 be unsafe to found any theory of climatic change upon the pro- 
 duction of a liquid which, in its natural state, may frequently have 
 resembled vinegar. 
 
 Besides the produce of the live-stock and crops of his demesne, 
 the lord of the manor had other sources of revenue. There were 
 the fixed money or produce rents for their land paid by free tenants 
 
MANORIAL COURTS 19 
 
 and bondmen, and the money payments which were sometimes 
 accepted in lieu of labour services. Sales of timber and underwood, 
 of turf, of herbage, licences to fold on the tenant's land, or licences 
 to turn pigs into the lord's woods for beechmast or acorns, brought 
 in varying sums of money. The mill at which the tenants ground 
 their com was his property. Whether the miller was his servant, 
 or farmed the receipts, a considerable proportion of the tolls went 
 into the landlord's purse, though the cost of repairs and upkeep 
 diminished the net profits. On some manors the oven in which 
 the bread was baked was abo the property of the lord of the manor. 
 The fees and fines levied and settled by the manorial courts in the 
 course of a year were surprisingly large ; besides their administra- 
 tive work, they were at once the guardians and the interpreters of 
 the customs of the manor. The range of business administered 
 in these courts, to which the tenants, both free and bond, were' 
 summoned as jurors, therefore embraced the domestic and financial 
 afiairs of the manor. Here were paid the fees for peimission to 
 reside outside the manor, to send children to school, to enter minor 
 orders, to apprentice a son to a trade, or to marry a daughter. Here 
 too were imposed the fines for slovenly work at harvest, for sellii^ 
 cattle without the lord's leave, for appropriating commons and 
 wastes, for moving a neighbour's landmark, for neglecting to repair 
 a cottage, for failing to discharge labour dues. Here too were 
 fi^^ed the contributions of the tenantry in money or labour towards 
 the maintenance of the by-roads within the manor, and the fines 
 for neglect of the duty to keep their surfaces in repair, to provide 
 for their proper dramage, and to remove obstructions. Here aJso 
 crime was punished ; offenders against life or property, as well as 
 poachers, were mulcted ; wrangling scolds and tavern-hunters were 
 presented ; idlers were deprived of their holdings, and, as a last 
 resort, expelled from the manor. Here too were fixed and levied 
 the necessary contributions for the repair of the stocks, the pillory, 
 the ducking-stool, and the pound. Here the miller would be fined 
 for itiiTiTig rubbish with his flour, the baker for selling short weight, 
 the brewer who adulterated bis beer, the ale-wife and tavern-keeper 
 who used false measures or mixed the drink they sold with peony 
 seed, salt or garUck, the carrier for failing to deliver goods, the 
 householder who harboured a stranger without a licence. Here 
 also were received and entered the fees of tenants for admission to 
 their holdings, and the payment of fines by sons who succeeded 
 
20 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 their fathers. Here, finally, on the sworn evidence of a body of 
 jurors chosen from the tenants, were drawn up the surveys of the 
 manor which recorded the exact condition of the estate — ^the total 
 acreage of the demesne, and of each of the arable fields, of the 
 meadows, the several pastures and the pasturage, and their annual 
 values ; the state of the woods and the coppices, how much could 
 be out, and what they were worth yearly ; the acreage of the 
 commons and the stock which they woxdd carry ; the number of 
 the live-stock of various kinds ; the holdings of the free tenants, 
 and their rents or services ; the holdings of the villeins, bordars, 
 and cottagers, their services and money equivalents ; the profits 
 of fisheries, mills, and incidental manorial rights ; the number of 
 tenants who had finally commuted their services for fixed payments 
 in cash, of those who, at the discretion of the lord, either rendered 
 labour services or paid the money values, and of those who still 
 discharged their personal obligations by actual work. 
 
 The remainder of the cultivated land of the manor was occupied 
 by tenants who paid rents in the form of military or labour 
 services, or money, or produce. Their farm practices, crops, 
 and hve-stock were the same as those of the demesne, though their 
 difficulties in combating winter scarcity were greater. Free tenants, 
 whose tenure was military service, or who had commuted the per- 
 sonal obhgations for quit-rents, may sometimes have held land, 
 like modem farmers, in their exclusive occupation for individual 
 cultivation. But the area of free land was comparatively small, 
 and, as often as not, it was thrown into the village farm, occupied 
 and cultivated in common by an agrarian association of co-partners, 
 &ee and unfree. 
 
 The varieties of tenure were great. So also were the varieties 
 of social condition, and of the obligations by which the grades of 
 those social conditions were governed. The distinctions between 
 freemen and bondmen and between freehold and bond tenure had 
 been, in the eye of the law, broad and deep. But custom had 
 gradually intervened, and, with endless variety of practice, miti- 
 gated the severity of legal theory. At law the bondman's position 
 was subject to the lord's caprice. Unlike the freeman, he was tied 
 to the manor ; he could not leave it without Ucence from the lord, 
 and payment of a fine. His services were uncertain in amount, 
 and could be increased at the lord's pleasure. He paid a fine to 
 many his daughter, to send his son to school, to make him a priest 
 
RANKS IN RURAL SOCIETY 21 
 
 or an apprentice. His lands and his goods and chattels might be 
 seized by his loid, and when he died, his holding was given to 
 whom the lord willed : his heir bought a licence to inherit even his 
 moveables, and paid a fine when he was admitted to his father's 
 tenancy. In the thirteenth century, some at least of these condi- 
 tions had been modified. The bondman's services had become 
 fixed ; he could buy and seU, hold property, and dispose of his 
 possessions by will. In theory he might still be at the mercy of 
 the lord's will : but custom had so regulated the exercise of that 
 will that it could no longer be capricious. 
 
 Speaking broadly ,*- the ma^ss of the occupiers of land were, in 
 the eye of the law, unfree — bondmen who rented the shares in the 
 land which they cultivated for themselves by labour services on 
 the lord's demesne. It was the amount and certainty of their 
 services which determined the rank of the unfree. Sometimes the 
 service was for the autumn only, or for autumn and spring work, 
 whether on specified days or at peirticular periods ; sometimes of 
 team work, sometimes of manual labour, sometimes of both ; some- 
 times of week-work throughout the year, and either of one, two, or 
 three days in each week. All their spare time was spent on their 
 own holdings. Of this semi-servile class the villeins formed the 
 aristocracy. The villein was neither a servant in husbandry nor 
 a labourer for wages. He occupied land, and, like Chaucer's 
 ploughman, had " catel " of his own. He was a partner in the 
 village association, holding land of various amounts. In theory 
 the size of his holding was based on the number of oxen which, in 
 discharge of his share of the joint liability, he could contribute to 
 the manorial plough-team.' A " hide " of land, which Professor 
 
 * Students of Profeasor Maitland's invaluable works mU recognise the danger 
 of broad and general statements, to all of which there are exceptions and 
 modifications. 
 
 • The hide, or "carucate" of Domesday Book, or "ploughland," which aver- 
 ages 120 acres, is sometimes said to have been as much land as a team of 8 oxen 
 could plough in a year of 44 weeks of working days. But Walter of Henley, 
 who is the authority for this statement, only tries to show that the area should 
 be 160, or even 180, acres; he does not say that it actually was of this larger 
 size. It does not seem likely that a fiscal unit varied with the nature of the 
 soil, the weight of the plough, the condition of the team, the configuration 
 of the land, and the temperament of the ploughman. It seems more probable 
 that the hide or carucate was the definite area of 120 acres. Therefore a 
 quarter of a carucate (30 acres) was the Domesday " virgate," which, imder 
 the name of " broad oz-gang," " husband-land," " farm-hold " or " farm " 
 in the North, " yardland " in the Midlands, " full land " in Cambridgeshire, 
 and " living " or " whole place " in Dorsetshire, formed the typiced arable 
 
22 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Maitiand considers to have been " the land of a household," was 
 treated as the area which a team of eight oxen could plough in a 
 working year. Its extent may have varied. But, if the size was 
 120 acres, then each hide consisted of four portions of 30 acres, 
 called " virgates," or 8 portions of 15 acres, called " bovates." 
 Thus the eighth part of the hide, or " bovate," was the land of one 
 ox ; the fourth part of the hide, or " vii^ate," was the land of 
 two oxen ; and the whole hide was the land of the complete team 
 of eight oxen. It was on this basis that the tenemental land, in 
 theory, and sometimes in practice, was divided. The typical 
 holding of the villein was regulated by his capacity to furnish one 
 or two oxen to the team. In other words, it was the " virgate " 
 or " yardland " of 30 acres, though one-ox holdings or " bovates " 
 of 15 acres, and even half-ox holdings, were frequent. 
 
 Villeins of the higher grade were generally distinguished from 
 inferior orders of the semi-servile classes of the peasantry by the 
 size of their holdings in the village farm, by the certainty of their 
 agricultural services on the demesne, and by the obUgation to do 
 team-work rather than manual labour. The smaller the holding, 
 the vaguer the labour obligations, the more manual the work, — 
 the lower was the grade of the villein. Besides the villeins there 
 were other orders of bondmen — such as the rural handicraftsmen 
 who were specially provided with land, and the bordars and cottars, 
 who rented particular cottages and garden ground, which often 
 carried with them from two to five acres of arable land, together 
 with common rights. The two latter classes, besides their obligatory 
 manual services, probably eked out their subsistence either as hired 
 labourers on the demesne or by supplying the labour for which 
 their wealthier neighbours were responsible. At the bottom of the 
 social ladder were the serfs, to whom strict law assigned no rights, 
 though there were many varieties in their grades and position. 
 Their chief badge of serfdom was the indeterminate character of 
 their services — the obligation to labour in the manner, at the 
 time, and for the wage, if any, which the lord directed. But 
 
 holding of the common-field farmer. It was m fact as much as two oxen 
 could plough in the working year. There were, however, also " one-oz men," 
 whose holdings of 16 acres were an eighth of a carucate, and were called in 
 Domesday Book " bovates," and at later stages " narrow oxgangs," or 
 " half places." Smaller holdings consisting of half bovates, like the " farthing 
 holds " of Dorsetshire, " fardels " of Somersetshire, or " fairundells " of 
 Gloucestershire, were by no means uncommon, and in practice there was no 
 fixed area for the arable holdings of open-field farmers. 
 
THE OPEN ARABLE FIELDS 23 
 
 the serf might occupy land, own cattle, and labour for himseU. 
 Thus, out of these various classes, free and unfree, sprang small 
 landowners, tenant farmers, copyholders,* and wage-earning 
 labourers. 
 
 Bound the village, or " town," in which were gathered the home- 
 steaxls of the inhabitants, lay the open arable fields, which were 
 cultivated in common by the associated partners. Here were 
 grown the crops which Shakespeare enumerates. These were the 
 lands " of Ceres " : 
 
 " — ^thy rich leas 
 " Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas." * 
 
 Here, at harvest time, the yellow of the com crops alternated with 
 the dark and light greens of beans or peas and the brown of the 
 bare fallows. This cultivated area, which included the driest and 
 soundest of the land, was hedgeless, open, and unenclosed, divided 
 by turf-grown balks into fields — two, three, or, rarely, four in 
 number. If the former, one field lay fallow, while the other was 
 under tillage for com, or beans, or peas. This dual system still 
 prevailed near Gloucester in the nineteenth century, and existed 
 at Stogursey in Somersetshire in 1879. But from the Norman 
 Conquest onward the three-field system was the most prevalent. 
 Down to the middle of the reign of George HE. the arable land 
 received the unvarying triennial succession of wheat or rye, of 
 spring crops such as barley, oats, beans, or peas, and of fallow. 
 
 ' The term " copyholder " belongs to a later date. In the thirteenth 
 century, practically all land held in villeinage, or in bondage, was held 
 " according to the custom of the manor " {aeoundum consiietudinem mcmerii). 
 The title was the sworn testimony of those who knew the custom. Land 
 was said to be held not only " according to the custom of the manor," but 
 " at the will of the lord " (ad volwntatem domini). By the thirteenth century, 
 however, the will of the lord was no longer arbitrary, but could only be exer- 
 cised according to manorial custom. 
 
 Towards the end of the fourteenth century, another expression was added. 
 Tenants were said to hold land " according to the custom of the manor by 
 a copy of the entry on the court roll " (per copiam rotuU cwrioB). Probably 
 it haid been found that, owing to the increased mobility of the rural popula- 
 tion, oral testimony was not always available. Hence it became the practice 
 to enter the incidents of the tenure of customary land on the rolls of the 
 manorial court, and tenants were called copyholders, because the copy of the 
 entry was the evidence of their title. The words " at the will of the lord " 
 were still retained, and it has been suggested {The End of Villainage in England, 
 by T. W. Page, American Economic Association, May, 1900, pp. 84-6) that 
 the use of the words indicated an increased power on the part of the lord to 
 abolish or alter the custom. 
 
 » Tempest, Act iv. So. i. 60-1. 
 
24 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 During these seven centuries a more scientific rotation was in some 
 districts adopted. Thus at Aston Boges, in Oxfordshire, a fourth 
 course wa« interposed. But, speaking generally, open-field hus- 
 bandry rather retrograded than advanced, as the discipline of 
 manorial officials relaxed. 
 
 Each of the three arable fields was subdivided into a number 
 of shots, furlongs, or flats, separated from one another by unploughed 
 bush-grown tinf balks, varying ia width from two to sixteen feet.^ 
 These fiats were in turn cut up into parallel acre, halt-acre, or 
 quarter-acre, strips coinciding with the arrangement of a ploughed 
 field into ridges and furrows. If the strips were acre strips, they 
 were a furlong in length (220 yards) and 4 rods (22 yards) in breadth. 
 Ploughmen still measure the acre in the same way as the open- 
 field strip. Theoretically each flat was square, with sides of 40 
 poles, containing 10 acres ; in practice every variety of shape and 
 admeasiu'ement was found. But, though the pole from which the 
 acre was raised varied from the 13J feet of Hampshire to the 24 
 feet of Cheshire, two sides of the flats always ran parallel. Thus 
 each of the three arable fields resembled several sheets of paper, 
 cut into various shapes, stitched together like patch-work, and 
 ruled with margins and lines. The separate sheets are the flats ; 
 the margins are the headlands running down the flats at right angles 
 to, and across the ends of, the parallel strips which are represented 
 by the spaces between the lines. The lines themselves are the 
 " balks " of unploughed turf, by which the strips were divided 
 from each other. The strips appear under different names. For 
 instance, in Scotland and Northumberland they were called " rigs " ; 
 in Lincolnshire " selions " ; in Nottinghamshire " lands " ; in 
 Dorsetshire " lawns " ; in North Wales " loons " ; in Westmor- 
 land " dales," and their occupiers " dalesmen " ; in Cambridgeshire 
 " balks " ; in Somersetshire " raps " ; in Sussex " pauls " ; else- 
 where in southern counties " stitches." When the strips were 
 stunted by encountering some obstacle, such as a road or river, 
 they were called " butts." ^ Stray odd comers which did not fit 
 in with the parallel arrangement of the fiats were " crustae," ' that 
 
 ^ The balks appear under a variety of names, such as " raines," "reins," 
 " walk," " meres," " lynches," " lantchetts," " landshares," " launchers," 
 or " edges." 
 
 < As in Kewington Butts. 
 
 * RegiMry of Worcester Priory (Camden Society), 1865, p. 18a. 
 
SCATTERED STRIPS IN OPEN-FIELDS 25 
 
 is, pieces broken off, " pightels," " gores," ^ " fothers," ^ and 
 " pykes," because, as Fitzherbert explains, they were " often brode 
 in the one ende and a sharpe pyke in the other ende." 
 
 The arable fields were fenced against the Uve-stook from seed- 
 time to harvest, and the intermixed strips were cultivated for the 
 separate use of individuals, subject to the compulsory rotation by 
 which each of the three fields was cropped. On Lammas Day 
 separate user ended, and conunon rights recommenced ; hence 
 fields occupied in this manner were, and are, called Lammas Lands 
 or " haJf-year lands." After harvest the hayward removed the 
 fences, and the live-stock of the community wandered over the 
 fields before the common herdsman, shepherd, or swineherd. The 
 herdsman, in the reign of Henry Vlii., received 8d. a year for 
 every head of cattle entrusted to his care, and the swineherd 4d. 
 for every head of swine. When sheep were folded on the cultivated 
 land, each farmer provided, during the winter months, his own 
 fold and fodder for his flock. Richard Hooker, while he held the 
 country Uving of Drayton Beauchamp in Buckinghamshire, was 
 found by two of his former pupils, " like humble and innocent Abel, 
 tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field." That 
 no occupier might find all his land fallow in the same year, every 
 one had strips in each of the three arable fields. If the holding 
 of the open-field farmer consisted of thirty acres, there would thus 
 be ten acres in each field. In other words, he would have ten 
 acres under wheat and rye, ten acres under spring crops, and ten 
 acres fallow. The same care was taken to make the divisions equal 
 in agricultural value, so that each man might have his fair pro- 
 portion of the best and worst land. To divide equally the good 
 and bad, well and iU. situated soil, the bundle of strips allotted in 
 each of the three fields did not he together, but was intermixed 
 and scattered. 
 
 In the lowest part of the land — ^if possible along a stream — lay 
 the " ings," " carrs," " leazes," or meadows, annually cut up into 
 lots or doles, and put up for hay. These doles were fenced off to 
 be mown for the separate use of individuals either from Candlemas 
 (February 2), or, more usually, from St. Gregory's Day (March 12) 
 
 1 As in Kensington Gore. 
 
 > Ci. Chaucer (Prologue, 630) : 
 
 "A ploughman was his brother. 
 That hadde y-lad of dong ful many a fother," 
 where the word is generally taken to mean a load. 
 
26 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 to Midsummer Day ; from July to February, or later, they were 
 open, common pasturage. Sometimes the plots, which varied in 
 size from a half-acre downwards, went with the arable holdings, so 
 that the same man annually received the same portion of meadow. 
 Sometimes the plots were balloted for every year. Each lot was 
 distinguished by a name, such as the cross, crane's foot, or peel, i.e. 
 baker's shovel, which will often explain puzzling field-names. 
 Corresponding marks were thrown into a hat or bag and drawn by 
 a boy. This balloting continued up to the last century in Somerset- 
 shire, and stm continues at Yamton in Oxfordshire.^ After the 
 hay had been cut and carried, the meadows reverted to common 
 occupation, and were grazed indiscriminately by the live-stock of 
 the village, till they were again fenced off, allotted, and put up 
 for hay. 
 
 On the outskirts of the arable fields nearest to the village lay 
 one or more " hams " or stinted pastures, in which a regulated 
 number of live-stock might graze, and therefore supplying superior 
 feed. Brandersham, Smithsham, Wontnersham, Herdsham, Con- 
 stable's Meld, Dog Whipper's Land, Barber's Furlong, Tinker's 
 Field, Sexton's Mead, suggest that sometimes special allotments 
 were made to those who practised trades of such general utility 
 as the stock-brander, the blacksmith, the mole-catcher, the cow- 
 herd, the constable, the barber, the tinker, and the sexton. The 
 dog-whipper's usefulness is less obvious ; but possibly he was 
 employed to prevent the live-stock from beiag harried by dogs. 
 Even the spiritual wants of the village were sometimes supplied in 
 the same way. Parson's Close and Parson's Acre are not uncommon. 
 It is significant that no schoolmasters seem to have been provided 
 for by allotments of land. 
 
 Besides the open arable fields, the meadows, and the stinted 
 hams, there were the common pastures, fringed by the untilled 
 wastes which were left in their native wildness. These wastes pro- 
 vided fern and heather for litter, bedding, or thatching ; small 
 wood for hurdles ; tree-loppings for winter browse of live-stock ; 
 fuzre and turves for fuel ; larger timber for fencing, implements, 
 and building ; mast, acorns, and other food for the swine. Most 
 of these smaller rights were made the subject of fixed annual pay- 
 ments to the manorial lord ; but the right of cuttlog fuel was 
 generally attached to the occupation, not only of arable land, but 
 
 1 As described by B. H. Gretton in The Economic JoumoU tat March, 1912. 
 
THE COMMON-PASTURES 27 
 
 of cottages. The most important part of these lands were the 
 
 common pastures, which were often the only grass that arable 
 
 farmers could command for their live-stock. Thej therefore 
 
 formed an integral and essential part of the village farm. No 
 
 rights were exercised upon them by the general public. On the 
 
 contrary, the commons were most jealously guarded by the privileged 
 
 commoners against the intrusion or encroachments of strangers. 
 
 The agistment of strange cattle or sheep was strictly prohibited : 
 
 commoners who turned out more stock than their proper share 
 
 were " presented " at the manorial courts and fined ; cottages 
 
 erected on the commons were condemned to be pulled down ; the 
 
 area within which swine might feed was carefully limited, and the 
 
 swine were to be ringed.^ Those who enjoyed the grazing rights 
 
 were the occupiers of arable land, whose powers of turning out 
 
 stock were, in theory, proportioned to the size of their arable 
 
 holdings, and the occupiers of certain cottages, which commanded 
 
 higher rents in consequence of the privilege. It was on these 
 
 commons that the cattle and sheep of the village were fed. Every 
 
 morning the cattle were collected, probably by the sound of a horn, 
 
 and driven to the commons by the village herdsman along drift 
 
 ways, which were enclosed on either side by moveable or permanent 
 
 fences to keep the animals from straying on to the arable land. In 
 
 the evening they were driven back, each animal returning to its 
 
 own shelter, as the herd passed up the village street. Similarly, 
 
 the sheep were driven by the village shepherd to the commons by 
 
 day, and folded at night on the wheat fallows. Sheep were the 
 
 manure carriers, and were prized as much for their folding quality 
 
 as for their fleeces. In some districts they were kept almost 
 
 entirely for their agricultural value to the arable land. Until the 
 
 winter they were penned in the common fold on the fallows or the 
 
 stubbles. After the fallows had been ploughed, and before the 
 
 crops on the other fields were cleared, they had only the commons. 
 
 During winter each commoner was obliged to find hay for his 
 
 sheep and his own fold, the common shepherd penning and folding 
 
 them so as gradually to cover the whole area. 
 
 The open-field system, thus briefly sketched with its arable, 
 meadow, and permanent pasture land, prevailed at some time or 
 
 ^ The Regulations for " Common Bighta at Cottenham and Stretham " 
 are printed by Dr. Cunningham in the Camden MisceUany, vol. zii. (1910), 
 pp. 173-296. 
 
28 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 other throughout England, except perhaps in the south-west. The 
 following description of the crofters' holdings in Skye in 1760 
 might have been written, with but few alterations, of half the cul- 
 tivated area of England in the eighteenth century : " A certain 
 number of tacksmen formed a copartnery and held a tract of land, 
 or township, for which they paid tribute to the chief, and each 
 member was jointly and severally responsible. The grazing was 
 in common. All the arable land was divided into ridges, assigned 
 annually, by lot among the partners. Each might have a dozen 
 or more of these smaU ridges, and no two contiguous except by 
 accident ; the object being to give each partner a portion of the 
 better and inferior land. The copartner appears to have had 
 cotters under him, for whose work he paid." The prevalence of 
 the system may still be traced with more or less distinctness in 
 rural England. The counties in which it was most firmly established 
 are counties of villages, not of scattered farmsteads and hamlets. 
 Turf balks and lynches record the time when " every rood of ground 
 maintained its man." Irregular and regular fences, narrow lanes 
 and wide highways, crooked and straight roads, respectively sug- 
 gest the piecemeal or the wholesale enclosure of common fields. 
 The waving ridges on thousands of acres of ancient pasture still 
 represent the swerve of the cumbrous village plough with its team 
 of eight oxen. The age of the hedgerow timber sometimes tells 
 the date of the change. The pages appropriated to hedges by 
 agricultural writers of the eighteenth century indicate the era of the 
 abolition of open fields, and the minuteness of their instructions 
 proves that the art of making hedges was still in its infancy. The 
 scattered lands of ordinary farms, compared with the compact 
 " court," " hall," or " manor " farm, recall the fact that the lord's 
 demesne was once the only permanent enclosure. The crowding 
 together of the rural population in villages betrays the agrarian 
 partnership, as detached farmsteads and isolated labourers' dwellings 
 indicate the system by which it has been supplanted. 
 
 Accurate comparison between the conditions of the rural popula- 
 tion in the thirteenth and twentieth centuries seems impossible. 
 Calculations based on the prices of commodities, involving, as they 
 must, the translation of the purchasing power of mediaeval money 
 into its modem equivalent, are necessarily guess-work. They are- 
 also to a great extent irrelevant, for few of the necessaries of life 
 were ever bought by the cultivators of the soil, and whether the 
 
THE SELF-SUPPORTING VILLAGES 29 
 
 com that they raised was fetching 3s. or 6s. the quarter in a distant 
 market made little difference to the inhabitants of villages. They 
 grew it for their own consumption. Owing to diflSculties of com- 
 munication, every village raised its own bread-supply. Hence a 
 great extent of land, which from a farming point of view formed an 
 excessive proportion of the total area, was tilled for com, however 
 tmsuited it might be for arable cultivation. As f aciUties of transport 
 increased, this necessity became less and less paramount. Land 
 best adapted to pasture no longer required to be ploughed, but 
 might be put to the use for which it was naturally fitted. Improve- 
 ments in means of communication were thus among the changes 
 which helped to extinguish village farms. But for the time, and 
 so long as the open-field system prevailed, farming continued to be 
 in the main a self-sufficing industry. Except for the payment of 
 rent, little coin was needed or used in rural districts. Parishes 
 till the middle of the eighteenth century remained what they were 
 in the thirteenth century — isolated and self-supporting. The 
 inhabitants had little need of communication even with their 
 neighbours, still less with the outside world. The fields and the 
 hve-stock provided their necessary food and clothing. Whatever 
 wood was required for building, fencing, and fuel was supphed from 
 the wastes. Each village had its mill, and nearly every house had 
 its oven and brewing kettle. Women spun and wove wool into 
 coarse cloth, and hemp or nettles into linen ; men tanned their own 
 leather. The rough tools required for cultivation of the soil, and 
 the rude household utensils needed for the comforts of daily life, 
 were made at home. In the long winter evenings, farmers, their 
 sons, and their servants carved the wooden spoons, the platters, 
 and the beechen bowls. They fitted and riveted the bottoms to 
 the horn mugs, or closed, in coarse fashion, the leaks in the leathern 
 jugs. They plaited the osiers and reeds into baskets and into 
 " weeles " for catching fish ; they fixed handles to the scythes, 
 rakes, and other tools ; cut the fiaUs from holly or thorn, and 
 fastened them with thonp to the staves ; shaped the teeth for 
 rakes and harrows from ash or willow, and hardened them ia the 
 fire ; cut out the wooden shovels for casting the com in the granary ; 
 fashioned ox-yokes and bows, forks, racks, and rack-staves ; 
 twisted willows into scythe-cradles, or into traces and other harness 
 gear. Travelling carpenters, smiths, and tinkers visited detached 
 farmhouses and smaller villages, at rare intervals, to perform 
 
30 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 
 
 those parts of the work which needed their professional skili. But 
 every village of any size found employment for such trades as those 
 of the smith and the carpenter, and the frequency with which 
 " Smiths Ham " appears among field names suggests the value 
 which the inhabitants attached to the forge and the anvil. Mean- 
 while the women plaited straw or reeds for neck-collars, stitched 
 and stuffed sheepskin bags for cart-saddles, peeled rushes for 
 wicks and made candles. Thread was often made from nettles. 
 Spinning-wheels, distafEs, and needles were never idle. Home- 
 made cloth and linen supplied all wants. Flaxen linen for board- 
 cloths, sheets, shirts or smocks, and towels, as the napkins were 
 called, on which, before the introduction of forks, the hands were 
 wiped, was only found in wealthy houses and on special occasions. 
 Hemp, in ordinary households, supphed the same necessary articles, 
 and others, such as candle-wicks, in coarser form. Shoe- 
 thread, halters, stirrup-thongs, girths, bridles, and ropes were 
 woven from the " carle " hemp ; the finer kind, or " fimble " hemp, 
 supplied the coarse linen for domestic use, and " hempen home- 
 spun " * passed into a proverb for a countryman. Nettles were 
 also extensively used in the manufacture of linen ; sheets and table- 
 cloths made from nettles were to be found in many homes at the 
 end of the eighteenth century. The formation of words like spin- 
 ster, Webster, lyster, shepster, maltster, brewster, and baxter 
 indicated that the occupations were feminine, and show that 
 women spun, wove, dyed, and cut out the cloth, as well as malted 
 the barley, brewed the ale, and baked the bread for the family. 
 
 ' MidBwrnmer-NigtU's Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1. 
 
FEUDAL BARONS AT CORN-MARKETS 31 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 TIEE BREAK-UP OP THE MANOR. 1300-1485. 
 
 Great lamdloids as faimeTS : horrors of winter scarcity : gradual decay of 
 the manorial system and the increased struggle for life : aspects of the 
 change : common rights over cultivated and uncultivated land : tendency 
 towards separate occupation : substitution of labour-rents for money- 
 rents; the Black Death; Labour legislation, and its effect; Manor of Castle 
 Combe and Berkeley Estates ; new relations of landlords and tenants 
 substituted for old relations of feudal lords and dependents ; tenant- 
 f anneis and free labourers ; leases and larger fanns ; increase of separate 
 occupations : Wilhcon Paston and Hugh Latimer ; wage-earning labourers ; 
 voliintaiy sturender of holdings ; freedom of movement and of contract. 
 
 CHAiiraES in farming practices are always slow ; without ocular 
 demonstration of their superiority, and without experience of 
 increased profits, new methods are rarely adopted. In the Middle 
 Ages agriculture was a self-supporting industry rather than a 
 profit-making business. The inmiediate neighbourhood of large 
 towns created markets for the surplus produce that remained after 
 satisfying the needs of the cultivators of the soil. But remoter 
 villages contained neither buyers of produce nor pioneers of improve- 
 ments. Edward I. was a gardener, and Edward n. a farmer, 
 horse-breeder, and thatcher. These royal tastes may have set the 
 fashion. Here and there great lay landowners, as well as great 
 ecclesiastics, actively interested themselves in farming progress. 
 Thomas, first Lord Berkeley, who held the family estates from 1281 
 to 1321, encouraged his tenants to improve their land by marling, 
 or by taking earth from the green highways of the manors. Another 
 famous farmer was his grandson, the third Lord (1326-61). Feudal 
 barons are rarely represented as fumbling ra the recesses of their 
 armour for samples of com. But " few or noe great fajres or 
 marketts were in those parts, whereat this lord was not himself, as 
 at Wells, Gloucester, Winchcomb, Tetbury, and others ; where also 
 hee new bought or changed the severall grains that sowed his 
 
32 THE BREAK-XJP OF THE MANOR 
 
 axrable lands." > These mediaeval prototypes of " Farmer George," 
 of " Tumip " Townshend, or of Coke of Norfolk were rare. Few 
 of the baronial aristocracy verified the troth of the maxim that 
 "the master's foot fats the soil." The strenuous idleness or the 
 military ardour of youthful lords was generally absorbed in field 
 sports and martial exercises — in tilting at the ring, in hawking, 
 hunting the buck, or lying out for nights together to net the fox. 
 Grown to man's estate, they congregated for a month at a time at 
 " tylts, tumaments, or other hastiludes," or exchanged the mimicry 
 of war for its realities in France, or on the borders of Scotland and 
 Wales. Most of the lay barons rebelled against the minute and 
 continuous labotu* of farming, and this contempt for bucolic life 
 may be illustrated from heraldry. Its emblems are drawn from 
 sport, war, mythology, or religion. Products and implements of 
 husbandry are despised, unless, like the " garb " or sheaf of the 
 Washboumes, the scythe of the Sneyds, or the hay-wains of the 
 Hays, they had been ennobled by martial use. 
 
 Few landowners, except the wealthiest, had as yet built per- 
 manent residences on their distant estates. Content with temporary 
 accommodation, they travelled with their households and retinues 
 from manor to manor, and from farmhouse to farmhouse, in order 
 to consume on the spot the produce of their fields and live-stock. 
 It was the practice of the first Lord Berkeley to go " in progress 
 from one of his Manor and f armehouses to an other scarce two miles 
 a sunder, making his stay at each of them . . . and soe backe to 
 his standinge houses where his wife and family remayned . . . 
 sometymes at Berkeley Castle, at Wotton, at Bradley, at Awre, 
 at Portbury, And usually in Lent at Wike by ArUngham, for his 
 better and neerer provision of Pish." His example was followed 
 by his successors. But in the frequent absences of manorial lords 
 on military service at home or abroad, iheir wives played important 
 parts in rural life. Joan, wife of the first Lord Berkeley, " at no 
 tyme of her 42 yeares manage ever travelled ten miles from the 
 mansion houses of her husband in the Countyes of Gloucester and 
 Somersett, much lesse humered herselfe with the vaine delights of 
 London and other Cities." She spent much of her time in super- 
 vising her " dairy affairs," passing from farmhouse to farmhouse, 
 taking accoimt of the smallest details. The fanuly tradition 
 
 ^ The Livea of the Berkdeye, by John Smyth of Nibley, ed. Maclean (1883), 
 vol. i. p. 300. 
 
THE MONKS AS FARMERS 33 
 
 lingered long. The same housewifely courses were followed by the 
 widowed Lady Serkeley, who administered the estates during her 
 son's minority in the reigns of Henry Vlil. and Edward VI., and 
 died in 1664. At all her country houses she " would betimes in 
 Winter and Somer mornings make her walkes to visit her stable, 
 bames, dayhousc, pultry, swinetroughs, and the like." Her 
 daughter-in-law's tastes were drSerent. She was a sportswoman, 
 delighting in buck-hunting, skilled with the cross-bow, an expert 
 archer, devoted to hawking, commonly keepiog " a cast or two of 
 merlins, which sometimes she mewed in her own chamber, which 
 falconry cost her husband each yeare one or two gownes and Mrtles 
 spoiled by their mutings." Well might the elder lady " sweare, by 
 God's blessed sacrament, this gay girle wiU begger my son Henry ! " 
 
 Great ecclesiastics made their progresses from manor to manor 
 like the lay barons, and for the same reason. But in many instances 
 monks were resident landowners, and by them were initiated most 
 of the improvements which were made in the practices of mediaeval 
 farming. They studied agriculture in the light of the writings of 
 Cato, Varro, and Columella : the quaintly rhymed English version 
 of Palladius was probably the work of an inmate of a religious house 
 at Colchester ; the Bides for the management of a landed estate 
 are reputed to be the work of one of the greatest of thirteenth 
 century churchmen, Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln ; Walter ' 
 of Henley is said to have been a Dominican, and manuscripts of his 
 work, either ia the original Norman French or translated into English 
 or Latin, found a place in many monastic libraries. Throughout the 
 Middle Ages, both in England and France, it was mainly the influence 
 of the monks which built roads and bridges, improved Uve-stock, 
 drained marshes, cleared forests, reclaimed wastes, and brought 
 barren land into cultivation. 
 
 Large improvements in the mediaeval methods of arable farming 
 were impossible until farmers commanded the increased resources 
 of more modem times. There was littie to mitigate, either for 
 men or beasts, the horrors of winter scarcity. Nothing is more 
 characteristic of the infancy of farming than the violence of its 
 alternations. On land which was inadequately manured, tind 
 on which neither field-turnips nor clovers were known till centuries 
 later, there could be no middle course between the exhaustion of 
 continuous cropping and the rest-cure of barrenness. The fallow 
 was un vSritable Dimanche accords d, la terre. As with the land, so 
 
 
 
34 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 with its products. Famine trod hard on the heels of feasting. It 
 was not only that prices rose and fell with extraordinary rapidity ; 
 but both for men and beasts the absolute scarcity of winter always 
 succeeded the relative plenty of autumn. Except in monastic 
 granges no great quantities of grain were stored, and mediaeval 
 legislators eyed corn-dealers with the same hostiUty with which 
 modem engineers of wheat comers are regarded by their victims. 
 The husbandman's golden rule must have been often forgotten — 
 that at Candlemas half the fodder and all the com must be 
 untouched. Even the most prudent housekeepers found it difficult 
 always to remember the proverbial wisdom of eating within the 
 tether, or sparing at the brink instead of the bottom. Many, like 
 Fanurge, eat their com in the blade. Equally violent were the 
 alternations in the employment afforded by mediaeval farming. 
 Weeks of feverish activity passed suddenly into months of com- 
 parative indolence. Winter was in fact a season to be dreaded 
 alike by the husbandman and his cattle, and it is not without good 
 cause that the joyousness of spring is the key-note of early English 
 poetry. 
 
 Under the conditions which prevailed in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, Uttle advance in farming practices could be 
 expected. During the greater part of the period, therefore, the 
 history of agriculture centres round those economic, social, and 
 political changes which shaped its future progress. Under the 
 pressure of these influences the structure of feudal society was 
 undermined. The social mould, in which the mediaeval world had 
 been cast, crumbled to powder under a series of transformations, 
 which, though they worked without combination or regularity, 
 proved to be, from the latter half of the fourteenth century onwards, 
 collectively and uniformly irresistible. Prom within, as well as 
 from without, the manor as an organisation for regulating rural 
 labour and administering local affairs was breaking up. As money 
 grew more plentiful, it became more and more universally the basis 
 on which services were regulated. Commerce, as it expanded, 
 created new markets for the sale of the produce of the soil. Parlia- 
 ment assumed new duties ; the Royal Courts of Justice extended 
 their jurisdiction ; and, as a consequence, manorial courts lost some 
 of their importance in matters of local self-government. Land was 
 beginning to be regarded as a source of income, not of military 
 X>ower. As landowning became a business and farming a trade. 
 
THE NEW STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 35 
 
 agricultural progress demanded less personal dependence, a freer 
 hand, a larger scope for individual enterprise. The foundations of 
 feudalisni were thus shaken, though the Hundred Years' War main- 
 tained its superstructure intact. It is this contrast between reality 
 and appearance which gives an air of hollowness and artificiality to 
 the splendour of the reign of Edward HI. 
 
 The break-up of the manorial system accompanied the transition 
 from an age of graduated mutual dependence towards an age of 
 greater individual independence. It meant the removal of restric- 
 tions to personal freedom, the encouragement of individual enter- 
 prise, the establishment of the principle of competition in determining 
 both money rents and money wages. From another point of view 
 the results were not entirely advantageous. Against the older 
 system it might be urged that it created a lack of opportunity which 
 caused local stagnation. In its favour might be pleaded that it 
 maintained a certain level of equality among the households in 
 village communities, presided over by the lord of the manor. Now, 
 however, the struggle for life becomes intensified ; the strong go to 
 the front, the weak to the wall ; for one man who rises in the social 
 scale, five sink. Here, one prospers, laying field to field, adding 
 herd to herd and flock to flock. Here, others sell their live-stock, 
 yield their strips of land to their more enterprising neighbour, and 
 become dependent upon him for employment and wages. From 
 the fourteenth century onwards the agricultural problem of holding 
 the balance even between the economic gain and social loss of 
 E^ricultural progress has puzzled the wisest of legislators. 
 
 The manorial organisation of labour suffered no sudden or uni- 
 versal coUapse, due to any improvements in the methods or altera- 
 tion in the aims of farming. It rather underwent a gradual and 
 local decay which originated in economic, social, and political causes, 
 and proceeded most rapidly in the neighbourhood of trading centres 
 or sea-ports. It would be inaccurate to attempt to divide this 
 process into successive stages, because they always overlapped, 
 were generally simultaneous, and were often almost complete on 
 one manor before they had begun on another. But from one point 
 of view, the movement increased the number of holdings which were 
 separately occupied ; in another aspect, it exchanged labour ser- 
 vices for their cash values, and altered the relations between feudal 
 lords and their retainers into those of employer and employed, and 
 of the letter and the hirer of land ; in another, it applied principles 
 
36 TBDE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 of competition to money rents and money wages ; in another, it 
 encouraged enterprising tenants to recognise that the best results 
 of farming could only be obtained on compact holdings, large enough 
 for the employment of money as well as of labour. 
 
 The tendency towards the separate occupation and individual 
 management of land had already begun, though it was most marked 
 on the new land which was brought into cultivation. On the ancient 
 arable land it was checked by the rights of common which were 
 enjoyed, not only over the waste, but over the open arable fields. 
 In their origin these rights were arable and attached only to arable 
 land. Each occupier of an arable holding was entitled to graze on 
 the common pastures the horses and oxen required for his tillage 
 operations, and to feed the sheep needed for manuring his cultivated 
 land. Without this right the associated partners in the common 
 venture of farming would have had no means of supporting their 
 beasts after the crops were sown. Common rights of pasture were 
 therefore integral portions of, and essential adjuncts to, the ancient 
 tillage system.^ No rights of common of pasture could be claimed 
 by the general public. The only persons by whom they could be 
 acquired and enjoyed were the occupiers of arable holdings. It was 
 as occupiers of portions of the tilled land, which was in fact or in 
 theory attached to their homes, that cottagers claimed and exercised 
 grazing privileges. On most manors three distinct kinds of common 
 rights existed. The first kind is, in this connection, unimportant, 
 though its creation marks an improvement in agricultural practices 
 and a step towards the break-up of the early open-field system. It 
 arose when the partners in a village farm agreed, with the sanction 
 of the lord of the manor, to set aside a portion of their joint arable 
 holdings for pasture, to be used in common in a " stinted " or 
 regulated manner. " There is commonly," says Ktzherbert,* " a 
 common close taken in out of the common fields by tenants of the 
 same towne, in which close every man is stinted and set to a cer- 
 taintie how many beasts he shall have in common." The second 
 class of conmion of pasture consisted of rights enjoyed by the 
 partners of the agrarian association over the whole cvUivated area 
 of the village farm, both over the arable portion that lay fallow in 
 rotation, and over all the other arable lands and meadows, after 
 the crops had been cleared and before the land was again sown or 
 
 I See chapter i. pp. 23-27. 
 
 * The Bolce of Surveyeng and Improvementet (1623), ed. 1639, chap. iz. 
 
VARIOUS RIGHTS OF COMMON 37 
 
 put up for hay. The third kind of conunon of pasture consisted 
 of rights over that part of the manor which was neither arable nor 
 meadow, — ^the outlying portions, which were left in their natural 
 condition, — ^the pastures, moors, wastes, woods, and heaths, which 
 had never been tilled. These rights were attached to the arable 
 holdings of manorial tenants, and to the occupation of particular 
 cottages on the manor, and, when the strictness of the ancient 
 system relaxed, might also be acquired by neighbours and strangers 
 who neither Uved nor held land within the manor. " In these 
 commons," says Pitzherbert,^ " the lord should not be stinted 
 because the whole common is his own." 
 
 Rights of common of pasture over cultivated or commonable 
 land, under the second heading, were enjoyed by the partners in 
 the village farm, were exercised in virtue of their arable holdings, 
 were limited to the extent of the farm, and could only be extinguished 
 by the agreement of the co-partners. But if the lord of the manor, 
 as a partner in the farm, had allowed portions of his demesne to be 
 intermixed with the strips of his tenants, he could withdraw those 
 portions at will, even though their withdrawal diminished the com- 
 monable area of cultivated land. With this exception, land subject 
 to these rights of common could not be freed by any individual 
 tenant, unless the main body of his farming partners assented. 
 
 Rights of common of pasture over the imtiUed land, under the 
 third heading, were at first confined to the occupiers of arable 
 holdings on the manor. In process of time, however, they were 
 less narrowly limited. They could not be enjoyed by a landless 
 public ; but they might be exercised by persons living both within 
 and without the manor. In the case of persons living within the 
 manor, the enjoyment of common rights belonged to the occupation 
 of arable holdings or of particular cottages to which arable land had 
 been or was attached. In the case of persons living outside the 
 manor, rights might be acquired by neighbours and strangers, 
 either by direct grant from the lord of the manor, or, through his 
 sufferance, by long usage. As a general rule, the number of live- 
 stock which each manorial tenant or freeholder could pasture on 
 the wastes was fixed, or capable of being fixed, in proportion to his 
 holding. Vaguer rights were acquired by neighbours and strangers, 
 and it was in these cases mainly that the lord's right of enclosure 
 was successfully resisted. At common law it seems that, against 
 ' Surveying, ohsp. iv. 
 
38 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 his own customary tenants, the lord of the manor could always 
 enclose the wastes at pleasure. Whether before 1236 he had the 
 same power at common law against the iree tenants of the manor is 
 disputed. Be this as it may, the Statute of Merton ^ in that year 
 empowered the lord of the manor to enclose against his free tenants, 
 provided enough pasture was left to satisfy his previous grants of 
 rights of common. Fifty years later, the Statute of Westminster ^ 
 (1285) extended the lord's right of enclosure to the case of those 
 neighbours and strangers who had acquired grazing rights, subject 
 to the same condition of sufficiency of pasture. Practically the 
 existence of rights of common of pasture only prevented enclosures 
 when the rights were enjoyed by the associated body of tenants 
 over one another's cultivated and commonable land, or when 
 general rights, vaguely expressed, had been acquired by strangers 
 or neighbours over the untilled wastes of the lord of the manor. 
 Unless a custom to the contrary could be established, an enclosure 
 of untilled waste by the lord of the manor would be upheld in the 
 law courts, provided that the number of live-stock which could be 
 turned out by the commoners was certain or capable of being 
 ascertained, and that enough pasture was left to satisfy the grazing 
 rights. 
 
 As early as the end of the twelfth century, landlords had begun 
 to withdraw their demesne lands from the village farm, to con- 
 solidate, enclose, and cultivate them in separate ownership. They 
 had also pared the outskirts of their woods and chases, reclaimed 
 and enclosed these " assart " lands, as they were called, and either 
 added them to their demesnes or let them in several occupations. 
 They had also begun to encourage partners in village farms ^ to 
 agree among themselves, to extinguish their mutual rights of 
 common over the cultivated land which they occupied, to con- 
 solidate their holdings by exchange, and to till them as separate 
 farms. The pace at which these enclosures proceeded, and the 
 extent to which they were carried, varied with each county and 
 almost with each manor. But by the end of the fifteenth century, 
 though the great bulk of the village farms remained untouched, the 
 area of land over which manorial tenants enjoyed rights of common 
 was considerably diminished, partly by the action of lords of the 
 manors, partly by that of the tenants themselves. Portions of the 
 
 1 20 Hen. m. c. 4. > 13 Ed. I. c. 46. 
 
 ' See chapter i. p. 6, note 1, and pp. 23-27. 
 
MONEY RENTS AND WAGES 39 
 
 tintilled waste had been enclosed, reduced to cultivation, and let 
 in separate farms to rent-paj^ing leaseholders, and to copyholders, 
 who were admitted to their tenancies in the Court Baron and 
 entered as tenants on the court roll. " Many of the lordes," says 
 Ktzherbert, " have enclosed a great part of their waste grounds, 
 and straightened their tenants of their commons within." So also, 
 by withdrawing those parts of the cultivated demesne which lay in 
 the village fields, and letting them in small compact holdings, they 
 had reduced the area of cultivated land over which common of 
 pasture was enjoyed. Fitzherbert notes that " the mooste part of 
 the lordes have enclosed their demeyn landes and medows, and 
 kepe them in severaltie, so that theyr tenauntes have no comyn 
 with them therein." Finally, the tenants themselves followed the 
 example of their landlords. Wherever the custom of the manor 
 permitted the practice, tenants and partners in the village farms 
 accepted " Ucenses to enclose part of their arable land, and to take 
 in new intakes or closes out of the commons," or agreed with their 
 fellow-commoners to extinguish, temporarily or permanently, their 
 mutual rights to graze each other's arable and meadow lands after 
 the crops had been cleared. 
 
 At first the holdings, whether separate or associated, were, as 
 has been previously described, rented by labour services or produce- 
 rents. But from the latter half of the thirteenth century onwards 
 a change had been taking place. Landowners, who were them- 
 selves exchanging their personal services for cash equivalents, 
 needed money not only to make the purchases required by on 
 advancing standard of Uving, but to satisfy the demands of the 
 royal tax-collectors. In their land they found a new source of 
 income. They still kept their demesnes in hand ; but they pre- 
 ferred to cultivate these home farms by the contract services of 
 hired men, whether servants in husbandry or day labourers, instead 
 of relying on the compulsory labour of tenants, which it was difficult 
 and expensive to supervise. They were, therefore, willing to 
 commute for money payments the team dues, and, to a less extent, 
 the manual dues, by which much of the manorial land was rented — 
 whether in the whole or in part, whether temporarily or permanently. 
 Those who owed the personal services were on their side eager to 
 pay the cash equivalents. The money payments freed them from 
 labour obligations which necessarily interfered with their own agri- 
 cultural operations, and enabled them to devote themselves, con- 
 
40 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 tinaously and exclusively, to the cultivation of their own holdings. 
 Their places on the demesne land were taken by wage-earning fann- 
 servants or hired labourers, recruited from the landless sons of 
 tenants, or from cottagers who either had no holding at all or not 
 enough to supply them with the necessaries of life. Thus there 
 were hired farm-servants and day-labourers cultivating the 
 demesne land for money wages ; tenants paying money rents 
 only for their holdings ; others who still paid their whole rent 
 in produce or in labour ; others whose labour services had been 
 partially commuted for money payments, either for a period or 
 permanently. < 
 
 The local and gradual break-up of the manorial organisation of 
 agricultural labour was accelerated by the Black Death (1348-9). 
 Entering England through the port of Weymouth in August, 1348, 
 the plague spread to the north before it died out in the autumn of 
 the following year. It had been preceded by several years of 
 dearth and pestilence, and it was succeeded by four outbreaks of 
 similar disease before the end of the century. During its ravages 
 it destroyed from one-third to one-half of the population. Lords 
 of manors suffered both as owners of land and as employers of 
 labour. Whole families were swept away, and large quantities of 
 land were thrown on the hands of landlords by the deaths of free- 
 holders and customary tenants without heirs or descendants. 
 Numbers of bondmen took advantage of the general confusion, 
 threw up their holdings, escaped into the towns, or joined the ranks 
 of free labourers. Their dereUct holdings increased the mass of 
 untenanted land, and their flight diminished the amount of resident 
 labour available for the cultivation of the home farm. Those 
 tenants who remained on the manor found in the landlord's diffi- 
 culty their opportunity of demanding increased wages, of commuting 
 labour services for money payments,^ of enlarging the size of their 
 
 ' Before the Black Death, on 81 manors, the services of tenants supplied 
 the necessary farm labour on the demesnes in the following proportions : 
 on 44, the whole ; on 22, the half ; on 9, an inconsiderable portion ; on 6, 
 all labour services were commuted. After the Black Death (1371-80), on 
 126 majiors, the proportions were as follows : on 22, the whole ; on 26, the 
 half ; on 39, an inconsiderable portion ; on 40, all labour services were com- 
 muted. The End of Villainage m England, by T. W. Page (Publications of 
 the American Economic Association, May, 1900), pp. 44-46, 69-65. 
 
 Miss Davenport {The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor, 1906, 
 pp. 62, 68) says that, out of 3219 services charged on the lands of Fomcett 
 Manor in 1376, only 195 were available in 1406. 
 
STATUTES OF LABOUR 41 
 
 holdings, of establishing the principle of competitive rents. The 
 " Great Death " in fact produced the natural results. There was 
 a fall in rents and a rise in wages, because the supply of land exceeded 
 the demand, and the demand for labour was greater than the 
 supply. 
 
 Legislation came to the aid of landowners by endeavouring to 
 maintain the supply of labour and to regulate the rise both of wages 
 and of prices. The statutes clearly illustrate the difficulties of 
 landlords and consumers. The crisis was so abnormal that unusual 
 action seemed justifiable. In the plague years of 1348-9 agricultural 
 labour was so scarce that panic wages were asked and paid. A 
 similar rise in prices took place simultaneously. So exorbitant did 
 the demands both of labourers and producers appear, following as 
 they did on a previous rise in both wages and prices, that a royal 
 proclamation was issued in 1349. It ordered all men and women, 
 " bond or free," — ^unless living on their own resources, tilling their 
 own land, employed in merchandise, or exercising some craft, — 
 to work on the land where they hved at the rate of wages current 
 in 1346. Those who gave or took higher wages were fined treble 
 or double the sums so given or received. The claim of lords of 
 manors to the services of their own men was acknowledged. But 
 their claim was no longer exclusive ; they were not to employ more 
 labour than they absolutely required. The king's proclamation 
 was not universally obeyed. Employers had either to lose their 
 crops or yield to " the proud and covetuous desires " of the men. 
 They were indeed placed in a difficulty. On the one hand, men 
 could not be hired under threepence to perform the same services 
 which had been recently commuted for a half-penny. On the 
 other hand, the strike was well-aimed and well-timed. It hit the 
 most vulnerable points. The classes of agricultural labourers 
 against whom the proclamation was specially directed were ser- 
 vants in husbandry, mowers, reapers, and harvesters. Servants in 
 husbandry, boarding at the home-farm or the houses of the larger 
 tenants, were the ploughmen, carters, cowherds, shepherds, milk- 
 maids, and swineherds, who had the care of the Uve-stock. They, 
 like the harvesters, were indispensable. If the crops were not 
 harvested when ripe, they spoiled ; if the Hve-stock were neglected, 
 they died. To solve the difficulty ParUament itself intervened. 
 The provisions of the proclamation were supplemented by the 
 first Statute of Labourers (1349, 23 Ed. III.), and expanded by a. 
 
42 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 series of Acts extending over the next 150 years.^ The stocks, 
 imprisonment, outlawry, and branding were the punishments of 
 those who refused to work, or absented themselves without hcence 
 from the hundred where they Uved. Every boy or girl, who had 
 served in husbandry up to the age of twelve " at the plough or cart," 
 was bound to " abide at the same labour." Justices, either of the 
 Peace or under a special commission, were sworn to enforce the 
 Acts, and to fix the rates of wages at which labourers could be 
 compelled to serve. 
 
 How far this legislation attained its immediate ends it is difficult 
 to say ; the repeated re-enactment of labour laws, the petitions 
 of employers, and the preambles to successive statutes may seem 
 to suggest that it failed. On the other hand, there is abundant 
 evidence* that the law was rigorously enforced, and this would 
 naturally be inferred from the fact that its administration was 
 entrusted to officials who were directly interested in compelling 
 obedience to its provisions. The rise both in wages and prices was 
 great. But the statutes undoubtedly prevented either from 
 reaching famine height. Whether they were completely successful 
 or not, they embittered the relations between employers and 
 employed, and so prepared the ground for the Peasants' Rising of 
 1381. Confronted by a discontented peasantry, burdened with 
 large tracts of land which threatened to pass out of cultivation, 
 hampered by the scarcity and deamess of labour, landlords turned 
 in new directions for relief. Here and there, where the climate 
 favoured the expedient, they reduced their labour-bills by laying 
 down tracts of arable land to pasture. Elsewhere the demesnes 
 were let off in separate farms at money rents. Often, in order to 
 secure tenants, the land was let on the " stock and land " system, 
 similar to that of the rrUtayer, the landlord findmg the stock and 
 implements. Sometimes the entire manor was leased to one or 
 
 1 E.g. 1360-1 (34 Ed. m. cc. 10, 11) ; 1368 (42 Ed. IIL o. 6) ; 1377 (1 Rio. n. 
 c. 6) ; 1386 (8 Bic. H. c. 2) ; 1388 (12 Bic. U. cc. 3-9) ; 1402 (4 Hen. IV. 
 c. 14) ; 1405 (7 Hen. IV. c. 17) ; 1423 (2 Hen. VI. c. 18) ; 1427 (6 Hen. VI. 
 c. 3) ; 1429 (8 Hen. VI. c. 8) ; 1444 (23 Hen. VI. c. 12) ; 1496 (11 Hen. Vn. 
 c. 22) ; 1496 (12 Hen. VII. c. 3) ; 1614 (6 Hen. VHI. c. 3) ; 1663 (6 Eliz. 
 c. 4). 
 
 >MiBS Putnam's Enforcement of the Statutes of Labourers (1908), (Columbia 
 University : Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. zzxii.) is 
 an exhaustive commentary on the administration of the law from 1349 to 
 1360. 
 
THE MANOR OF CASTLE COMBE 43 
 
 more tenants, who paid a fixed annual rent for the whole, and then 
 sub-let portions of the land.^ 
 
 Two examples of this gradual transformation of the manorial 
 system may be quoted. In the first instance— that of Castle Combe * 
 in Wiltshire — ^the neighbourhood of a clothmaking industry may 
 have made the process of change exceptionally rapid, even for the 
 south of England. At the Domesday Surrey the manor contained 
 1200 acres imder the plough. Of this arable land, 480 acres were 
 in the lord's demesne, cultivated by 13 serfs and the team and 
 manual labour of the manorial tenants. The remainder of the 
 arable area (720 acres) was occupied by 5 villeins, 7 bordars, and 
 5 cottagers. There was a wood of a mile and half in length by 
 three quarters of a mile in breadth. There were also three water 
 mills. The whole popidation consisted of bondmen : none were, 
 in the eye of the law, free. In 1340 the tenemental land had 
 increased to nearly 1000 acres. There were ten freemen, holding 
 between them 247 acres of arable land. Of these freemen, one of 
 the three millers held an estate of inheritance to himself and his 
 heirs, at a fixed quit-rent, subject to a heriot and attendance at 
 the manorial courts. The nine remaining freemen, among whom 
 were the other two millers, held their land at will at fixed money 
 rents and similar services. The rest of the inhabitants were still 
 bondmen. Fifteen customary tenants occupied for the term of 
 two Uves 540 arable acres, in holdings of from 60 to 30 acres, partly 
 by money rents, partly by labour services. Eleven others held 
 15 acres each (165 acres) for two lives, paying their rent only by 
 labour on the demesne ; but in addition nine of them also held 
 crofts, for which they paid annual money rents. All these 
 classes, in virtue of their holdings, were protected against caprices 
 of the lord's will by manorial customs. Many of them remained 
 bondmen in status, but the condition of their tenure was raised. 
 Eight " Monday-men " held cottages and crofts or curtilages by 
 labour services only. These thirty-four bondmen, at the will of 
 
 * Thus the land of the manor of Hawated in Sufiolk was let in 1410 by 
 Sir William Clopton to Walter Bone, Sir William reserving the manor-house 
 and the fines and other legal rights of a manor (History of Hawated, pp. 
 193-5). 
 
 ^Hittory of the Manor, etc. of CasUe Combe, by G. Poulett Scrope (1862). 
 The areas are calculated on the assumption that the local " earucate " con- 
 tained 120 acres. Whatever the actual acreage may have been, the pro- 
 portions remain the same. 
 
44 THE BREAK-XJP OF THE MANOR 
 
 the lord, could buy themselves out of their labour obligations on 
 payment of the cash values which are entered against their services 
 in the steward's book. In this event substitutes were provided 
 in the twelve cottagers, who paid a fixed money rent for their 
 cottages. Immediately after the " Great Death " the final stage 
 is reached. In 1352 the demesne was cut up into separate farms, 
 and let on money rents. Labour services were therefore no longer 
 needed, and were either merged in the copyhold rents or allowed 
 to die out. 
 
 The second instance, that of the vast estates of the Berkeleys, 
 covers a wider area. The policy adopted by the family in the 
 management of their manors in Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, 
 Essex, and elsewhere, was in one important respect consistent from 
 1189 to 1417. Throughout the whole period, successive lords 
 aimed at increasing their enclosures. They began to withdraw 
 those portions of the demesne which lay in " common fields, here 
 one acre or ridge, and there an other, one man's intermixt with an 
 other," to consolidate them, free them from common, and enclose. 
 By exchange with free tenants, other lands were thrown together 
 and similarly treated. The skirts of woods and chases were taken 
 in hand, and hundreds of acres of " assart " land were enclosed. 
 Sometimes these enclosures were made by agreement ; sometimes 
 without. Maurice de Berkeley (1243-81) had within his manor of 
 Hame " a wood called whitclive wood, adioinynge whereunto were 
 his Tenants' arrable and pasture grounds and likewise of divers 
 freeholders. This hee fancieth to reduce into a parke ; hee treateth 
 with freeholder and tenant for buyinge or exchanginge of such of 
 their lands lyeing neere the said wood as hee fancied : In which 
 wood, also, many others had comon of pasture for theire cattle all 
 tymes of the yeare, (for noe woods or grounds, in effect, till the Eve 
 of this age, were inclosed or held in severalty :) with theis also hee 
 treatieth for releases of their comon : After some labor spent, and 
 not prevailinge to such effect as hee aymed at : hee remembered 
 (as it seemeth) the Adage, muUa rum laudantur nisi priua peracta : 
 many actions are not praisworthy till they bee done : Hee there- 
 fore on a sodaine resolutely incloseth soe much of each man's land 
 imto his sayd wood as hee desired : maketh it a parke, placeth 
 keepers, and storeth it with Deere, And called it, as to this day it is, 
 Whitclyve parke. They seeing what was done, and this lord 
 offeringe compositions and exchanges as before, most of them 
 
THE BERKELEY ESTATES 45 
 
 soone agreed, when there was noe remedy. . . . Those few that 
 rema3med obstinate fell after upon his sonne with suites, to theire 
 small confort and less gaines." ^ 
 
 For the first 140 years of the period (1189-1417) the lords of 
 Berkeley steadily pursued the plan of converting customary 
 tenancies and tenancies of newly enclosed lands into freeholds of 
 inheritance at fixed quit-rents which represented the rack-rents 
 then current. They seem to have feared that in future years the 
 income of their land would fall rather than rise. Robert de Berke- 
 ley began the policy (1189-1220) ; it was continued by his successor, 
 Maurice ; it culminated in the time of Thomas, first Lord Berkeley 
 (1281-1321), who himself created 800 of these freeholds, many of 
 which still remained when John Smyth wrote the history of the 
 family in 1628. This family poKcy was, however, completely 
 reversed by his grandson Thomas, third Lord Berkeley (1326-61). 
 Many himdreds of the freeholds created by his predecessors were 
 repurchased, and let at rack-rents. His example was, for the next 
 half century, actively followed by his successors. But for this 
 reversal of the family policy, Smyth calculates that three-quarters 
 of the Berkeley Estates would have been freeholds of inheritance, 
 paying fixed quit-rents of fourpence or sixpence an acre for land 
 which in 1628 was worth twelve shillings. 
 
 At no time during the period (1189-1415) was any large proportion 
 of the demesne lands divided and let on lease. The Berkeleys 
 themselves farmed on a gigantic scale through their bailifis and 
 their reeves. Thus the third lord (1326-61) kept in his own hands 
 the demesnes of upwards of 75 manors, stocking them with his 
 own oxen, cows, sheep, and swine. On no manor did the flock of 
 sheep number less than 300 ; on some it reached 1500. At Bever- 
 ston in Gloucestershire, in the seventh year of Edward HI., he 
 sheared 5775 sheep. From these manors his supplies were drawn 
 to feed each day at his " standing-house " 300 persons and 100 
 horses. Thence came every year geese, ducks, peacocks, capons, 
 hens and chickens, — 200 of each kind, many thousands of eggs 
 and 1000 pigeons, coming from a single manor, — stores of honey, 
 wax, and nuts, an " uncredible " number of oxen, bullocks, calves, 
 sheep and lambs, and vast quantities of wheat, rye, barley, oats, 
 pease, beans, apples, and pears. All was accounted for with minute 
 detail by the stewards, reeves, and baJlifis. Their accounts for 
 * Lives of the Berkeleys, voL i. pp. 140-1. 
 
46 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 the manors and for the household show what amount of com 
 remained in the granary from the previous year ; how much 
 was each year reaped and winnowed, sold at markets, shipped to 
 sea ; how much was consumed in the lord's house, in his stable, 
 in his kennels, in the poultry yard, or in the falcons' mews ; how 
 much was malted ; how much was given to the poor, to friars 
 and other religious orders by way of yearly allowances. 
 
 The policy of repurchasing freeholds and of increasing enclosures 
 was pursued by the fourth lord (1361-68) and by his son (1368- 
 1417). But from 1385 onwards the practice of farming the 
 demesne lands through the reeves was abandoned. " Then," says 
 Smyth, " began the times to alter, and hee with them (much 
 occasioned by the insurrection of Wat Tyler and generally of all 
 the Comons in the land,) And then instead of manureing his 
 demesnes in each manor with his own servants, oxen, kine, sheep, 
 swine, poultry and the like, under the oversight of the Reeves of 
 the manors. . . . This lord began to joyst and tack in other 
 mens cattle into his pasture grounds by the week, month, and 
 quarter : And to sell his meadow grounds by the acre ; and so 
 between wind and water (as it were) continued part in tillage, 
 and part let out and joysted as aforesaid for the rest of that 
 kings rajgne. And after, in the time of Henry the fourth, let 
 out by the year stU more and more by the acre as hee found 
 chapmen and price to his likeing." ^ The landlord was ceasing to 
 be a patriarchal farmer and becoming only a rent-receiver. The 
 process went on with increasing rapidity. By the end of the reign 
 of Edward IV. the greater part of the manors and demesnes had 
 been let to tenants, either on rack-rents or at lesser rents with the 
 reservation of a fine. The day-works due from the old customary 
 tenants, in proportion to their holdings of yard-lands and " far- 
 rundeUs," together with their produce rents, were commuted into 
 money equivalents and added to the new rents. 
 
 The story of the Manor of Castle Combe and of the estates of the 
 Berkeleys holds true, with many variations, of England generally. 
 Everywhere the cultivation of demesnes by the labour services of 
 manorial tenants was gradually abandoned, and the older system 
 replaced by separate farms, let for money rents to individual 
 occupiers. The change proceeded more rapidly in the south and 
 south-west than in the north and east. But as the fifteenth century 
 1 Livea of the Berkeleyt, vol. ii. pp. 5-6. 
 
FREE LABOURERS 47 
 
 neared its close the relations between owners, occupiers, and cul- 
 tivators of land had, in many parts of England, assumed a more 
 modem aspect. There was a large iocrease in the number of free- 
 holders, and of leaseholding or copyholding farmers renting land in 
 individual occupation ; there was also an increase in the number 
 of free labourers whose only capital was their labour. The complete 
 aboUtion of villeinage had been demanded by the people in the 
 rising of 1381, and one of the principal objects of the rioters had 
 been the destruction of the rolls of the manor courts, which were 
 the evidence not only of their titles but of their disabilities. Possibly 
 they may have hoped that, if the court roUs were destroyed, they 
 would be left in undisturbed possession of their holdings. Possibly 
 they may have expected to escape the payment of the vexatious 
 fines and licences incidental to the tenure, and there is some suggestion 
 that landlords were endeavouring to recoup themselves for the loss 
 of income, which the commutation of labour services and the 
 decrease of the manorial population had produced, by the stricter 
 exaction of payments. Eighty years later the class of villeins, 
 which once had included the great mass of the rural population, 
 was fast disappearing. The more prosperous members of the class 
 had retained their hold on the land, whether on the demesnes, the 
 assart lands, or the village farms. Some had become freeholders ; 
 others rented their holdings at fixed money rents on leases for a 
 term of years or for Uves ; others, whose rights were derived from 
 ancient customs, were admitted as copyholders for lives and possibly 
 of inheritance on the court roll of the manor. The uncertainty of 
 villein tenure was gone, and its brand of personal servitude could 
 not long continue when the old relation of feudal lord and dependent 
 was exchanged for that of landlord and tenant or of employer and 
 employed, and was expressed in cash instead of personal services. 
 Even landless bondmen had for the most part gained their personal 
 freedom. Some purchased freedom by money payments ; on 
 some the influence of the Church, or the pricking of conscience 
 conferred it by a deathbed emancipation ; the legal presumption 
 of natural hberty and the decisions of the law courts bestowed it 
 on others. Here a bondman escaped from the manor and was 
 lost sight of ; here a man took refuge in a town ; another accepted 
 the tawny livery of the Berkeleys or of some other great lord ; a 
 fourth received the tonsmre, or took service in a monastery, as a 
 lay brother ; a fifth made freedom the condition on which he would 
 
48 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 take up land. In numerous cases the services were lost from 
 neglect, because they ceased to be profitable when landlords aban- 
 doned farming and became only rent-receivers. In all these ways 
 the ranks of freemen and free labourers were recruited. The 
 numbers of villeins dwindled fast. But the tenure survived the 
 Tudor period. Its abolition was demanded ia the eastern counties 
 during Kett's rebeUion (1649), and all men who had not been 
 legally emancipated hved throughout the reign of Elizabeth in 
 peril that its incidents might be revived against them. Even the 
 old personal services still lingered. Till the end of the eighteenth 
 century, labour dues as part of the rent of land were enforced in 
 the north-west of England. Half the county of Cumberland was 
 stiU unenclosed in 1794. " By far the greatest part of this county 
 was held under lords of manors, by that species of vassalage, called 
 customary tenure ; subject to the payment of fines and heriots, on 
 alienation, death of the lord, or death of tenant, and the payment 
 of certain annual rents, and performance of various services, called 
 Boon-days, such as getting and leading the lord's peats, plowing 
 and harrowing his land, reaping his com, hay-making, carrying 
 letters, etc., etc., whenever summoned by the lord." ^ 
 
 The fifteenth century hes midway between two recognised periods 
 of distress among the rural population. Agriculturally, its history 
 is almost a blank. The silence has been interpreted in different 
 ways. Some writers have considered it as a time of progress ; 
 others have read it as the reverse. There is evidence that the 
 principal sufferers by the dynastic and aristocratic struggle of the 
 Roses were the nobiUty and the soldiers, that country districts 
 were not laid waste, and that villages and their populations were 
 neither destroyed nor harried. If so, rural life may have advanced 
 peacefully, profiting by the absorption of landowners in more 
 exciting pursuits than the administration of their estates. When 
 once the struggle was ended, a new world began to piece itself 
 together. Accepting the spirit of the coming age, agriculture 
 reorganised itself on a money basis, and two classes emerge into 
 prominence — capitalist tenant-farmers and free but landless 
 labourers. Both had been slowly forming during the first three 
 quarters of the century : both were equally essential to the changed 
 conditions of farming. The tenant-farmer had risen in the social 
 
 * Qenerdl View of the AgnouUwre of the County of OumberUmd, by John 
 Bailey and Oeorge Culley (1794), p. 11. 
 
FORMATION OF KEW CLASSES 49 
 
 scale ; the labomer, if the possession of land alone measored his 
 position in society, had fallen. Mediaeval oiganisations of trade 
 were undergoing a mTniloT transformation. Guilds, like village 
 farms, had maintained a certain equality of wealth and position 
 among the master craftsmen, and apprentices and journeymen not 
 only looked to become masters themselves, but shared in the 
 advantages of membership of the organised crafte. At the close 
 of the fifteenth century, the wealthier liveried masters began, like 
 capitalist tenant-farmers, to form a higher rank within the guild, 
 and to control and administer its policy. Below them in the scale 
 a new class was coming into existence. Independent journeymen 
 were increasing in number — ^hired artisans who derived no benefits 
 from the guilds, enjoyed no prospect of becoming master-craftsmen, 
 and depended for their livelihood, like the free labourer divorced 
 from the soil, on employment and wages. For the rising classes, 
 the fifteenth century may have been a period of prosperity ; for 
 the classes which were in some respects falling, it was probably 
 a time of adversity. Only thus can the rose-coloured descriptions 
 o{ wnters like Sir John Portescue be reconciled with the darker 
 accounts which might be put together from other sources. It is 
 not in the gay holiday scenes of a Chaucer, but in the grimly realistic 
 pictures of a Langland that the features of rural life are most truly 
 painted. 
 
 Leaseholders and copyholders in separate occupation of farms 
 had increased rapidly in number as well as in importance. Their 
 ranks were swollen by the tenants of the reclaimed wastes, by those 
 among whom the demesne was now divided, and by holders of the 
 " stock and land " leases who had saved sufficient capital to stand 
 on their own feet ; by men of capacity and enterprise, who realised 
 the superior advantages of a separate holding, however small ; by 
 hundreds of the old customary tenants, who found that the rents 
 for which their personal services had been commuted were higher 
 than the competitive money rents which land could command when 
 the supply was excessive. The terms for which leases ran grew 
 longer. They advanced from a year to five years, then to seven 
 years, then to ten years, then to twenty-one, then to lives, and often 
 to fee farm. The increasingly prolonged term illustrates the greater 
 confidence in the stability of the government. It also indicates, 
 on the part of the farmer, a growing sense of the legal security 
 which leases afforded ; on the part of landowners, the wish to retain 
 
 D 
 
50 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 as long as possible their responsible tenants ; and, among the more 
 far-sighted of the tenantry, a desire to rid themselves of the imper- 
 fect ownership which cnstomary tenure implied. Finally, farms were 
 increasing in size. The word " farm " was itself changing its mean- 
 ing from the stipulated rent to the area of land out of which the 
 payment issued. In this transition another meaning of the word 
 was lost. In many parts of England at that time, and in the north 
 of England down to the last century, a farm meant that definite 
 area of land which afforded a living to the occupier and his family.^ 
 By the end of the fifteenth century it had acquired its modem 
 sense of an indefinite area of land occupied by one tenant at one 
 rent. Complaints of the practice of throwing together a number 
 of men's " livings " into one holding in one man's occupation begin 
 to be frequent, and are directed against the absorption of the small 
 arable holdings of from ten to thirty acres. They occur in sermons, 
 in Petitions to the King, in doggerel verae. The letter of the Vicar 
 of Quinton in Gloucestershire, written to the President of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford,^ at the close of the fifteenth century, breathes the 
 spirit of the twentieth century. Magdalen College owned an estate in 
 the parish of Quinton, and the president hesitated whether the 
 College should let the land as one farm, or, as we should now say, 
 let it in small holdings. The vicar appeals on behalf of his parish- 
 ioners. " Aftur my sympull reson," he writes, " it is mor meritory 
 to support and succur a comynte [community] then one mane, 
 yowre tenan[ts] rathere then a stronge man, the pore and the 
 innocent for [instead of] a gentylman or a gentylman's man." 
 
 Whatever may have resulted from the vicar's appeal, circum- 
 stances generally favoured the multipUcation of separate holdings 
 and their increase to a size which rendered the employment of 
 money as well as of labour remunerative. Practical agriculturists, 
 like Fitzherbert, urge every man to " change fields with his neigh- 
 bour, so that he may lay his lands together," keep more hve-stook, 
 improve the soil by their " compostynge," and rest his com land 
 when it becomes impoverished. The long wars with France were 
 over ; the civil strife between York and Lancaster was ended ; 
 the central government under Henry VII. was firmly established ; 
 trade was beginning to expand ; population, arrested in its increase 
 since the death of Edward I., was once more growing. On the 
 
 1 The Anoient Farms of Northumberland, by F. W. Dendy (1893), pp. 11-19. 
 ' England in the Fifteenth Century, by the Rev. W. Denton (1888), p. 318. 
 
PASTON AND LATIMER 51 
 
 other hand, land had depreciated in value ; rents had declined ; 
 farming had deteriorated ; useful practices had been discontinued ; 
 cattle were dwindling in size and weight ; the conunon pastures 
 had become infected with " murrain " ; the arable area of open- 
 fields had grown less productive, and without manure its fertility 
 could not be restored. Land was cheap to buy and cheap to rent. 
 Enterprising purchasers and farmers could make it pay, if they 
 realised the advantages of separate occupation, of employing money 
 on the land, of reviving obsolete practices like marling, and, in 
 certain climates, of adopting a convertible husbandry that adapted 
 itself to fluctuating needs better than the open-field system, which 
 rigidly regulated the cultivation of the soil and permanently separ- 
 ated arable land from pasture. The one obstacle to the success of 
 the new tenant-farmer was the scarcity and deamess of labour. 
 But sheep-grazing cut down labour bills, while legislation checked 
 the natural rise of wages, and barred the outlet into towns against 
 agricultural labourers and their sons. Even a high rate of wages 
 often proved nominal rather than real, for, under the Statutes of 
 Labourers, farmers had the option of paying their men in com at 
 the statutory price of 6s. 8d. a quarter when com fell below that 
 price, or in money when the price of com approached or exceeded 
 the statutory figure. 
 
 Two contemporary pictures have been painted of the lives of 
 tenant-farmers, who were fathers of famous sons — one at the 
 opening, the other at the close, of the fifteenth century. Each 
 picture seems to be more or less typical of the farming class at the 
 periods to which they belong. Clement Paston, at the beginnii^ 
 of the century, lived at the village of Paston, near Mundesley in 
 Norfolk.^ " He was," says an anon3mious writer who was no 
 friend to the family, " a good plain husband(nian), and lived upon 
 his land that he had in Paston, and kept thereon a plough all times 
 in the year, and sometimes in barlysell two ploughs. The saide 
 Clement yede (went) at one plough both winter and summer, and 
 he rode to mill on the bare horseback with his com under him, 
 and brought home meal again under him, and also drove his cart 
 with divers corns to Wynterton to sell as a good husband(man) 
 ought to do." He had at the most 100 or 120 acres of land, some of 
 it copyhold, and a " little poor water-mill." He married a bond- 
 woman. Their son William, who was kept at school, often on 
 1 Paston Letters, ed. Gaiidner, Introduction, voL i. pp. 28-30. 
 
52 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 borrowed money, became a distmgaished lawyer, a sergeant-at-law, 
 in 1429 a Judge of the Common Pleas, and the founder of the 
 Paston family. At the close of the same century, Hugh Latimer 
 the father of the Bishop of Worcester, was a farmer in Leicester- 
 shire. Preaching before Edward VI.,' the son describes his father's 
 circumstances. The elder Latimer rented some 200 acres of arable 
 land with rights of common of pasture, employed half a dozen men 
 on his farm besides women servants, ran 100 sheep, milked 30 cows, 
 owned oxen for ploughing, and a horse for riding or for the king's 
 service. He portioned his daughters with £50 or £60 apiece ; and, 
 besides teaching his son to " lay his body in the bow," sent him to 
 school and college. He was hospitable to his neighbours and 
 charitable to the needy. And this he did out of the profits of his 
 farm. 
 
 For wage-earning landless labourers, the last 130 years of the 
 period from 1200 to 1485 were probably, in some respects, unpros- 
 perous. They now were exposed to the fluctuations, not only of 
 the price of necessaries, but of the labour market. Yet agricultural 
 change had not affected them wholly for the worse. The bright 
 side was the bondman's passage towards personal freedom ; the 
 darkest feature was his divorce from the soil. To some extent his 
 severance from the land was the means and the price of his personal 
 emancipation. 
 
 The surrender of the hold on the land was, at this period, mainly 
 due to voluntary action by the villeins themselves ; it was not 
 caused by clearances for sheep fanning. A landlord had no desire 
 to lose them either as tenants or as labourers. Their flight threw 
 more land on his hands, and at the same time increased the scarcity 
 of labour for its cultivation. But villeins, whose holdings were 
 small, had little inducement to retain them, and much to gain by 
 escape. The sentimental objection to the tenure had been deepenied 
 and embittered by the teaching of wandering friars and " poor 
 preachers." Freedom meant the rise out of a condition, the degra- 
 dation of which Hiey had begun to feel with a new acuteness. It 
 meant also new possibilities. Beyond the limits of their own 
 manor, they might, as freemen, acquire other holdings, or join the 
 ranks of free labourers, or settle behind a city wall and practise 
 some handicraft. After the " Black Death " the prospect of employ- 
 ment in towns was good. Hands were at a premium. The great 
 1 Sermon* (Parker Society), p. 101. 
 
THE LABOURERS' GAIN AND LOSS 53 
 
 scarcity of labour is proved by the fact that the severity of the 
 Labour Statutes was relaxed in the case of immigrants into London, 
 and, temporarily, into Norwich. That the chances of town life 
 were in themselves sufficient inducements for flight from the manor 
 is shown by the willingness of villeins to surrender their holdings, 
 and purchase licences to Uve within the walls of cities. But very 
 often another cause must have made the voluntary severance from 
 the land a Hobson's choice. The yield of arable land on open- 
 field farms was so small that farming scarcely provided necessaries. 
 Throughout the closing years of the fifteenth century, successive 
 outbreaks of murrain had killed numbers of cattle and sheep, swept 
 off geese and poultry, and even destroyed the bees. If the results 
 of similar outbreaks in the sixteenth century justify the conclusion, 
 it may be supposed that it was the live-stock of open-field farmers 
 which suffered most. Without stock small holders or cottagers 
 found common rights valueless, and their few acres of arable land 
 rather a burden than a profit. To such men the voluntary surrender 
 of holdings, with or without flight, might well seem the choice of a 
 lesser evil. For a time they may have prospered as labourers for 
 hire. But when the conversion of tillage to pasture had begun, 
 their daily employment and their harvest earnings were in peril. 
 In such conditions it must have been useless, if not impossible, to 
 enforce residence within the limits of the manor. 
 
 The possibility that the manor itself might not provide work for 
 its inhabitants was recognised in the labour legislation of the 
 period. Indirectly the Labour Statutes, though manifestly not 
 passed in the interest of labourers, aided their progress towards 
 freedom of movement and of contract. They broke down the 
 exclusive right which lords of the manor claimed over the personal 
 services of their manorial dependents. Hitherto no one could 
 employ a villein from another manor without the risk that this 
 superior claim might be asserted. Under the king's proclamation 
 of 1349, the lord's right is recognised, preferentially, but not 
 exclusively. He has the first claim, not the only claim, to the 
 services. He may not employ more labour than he absolutely 
 needs. When his requirements are satisfied, his villein may, and 
 on demand must, work for other employers. In the statutes them- 
 selves the same principle is carried further. Servants in husbandry 
 are bound to appear, tools in hand, in market towns to be publicly 
 hired, as, five centuries later in many parts of England, they 
 
54 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 
 
 frequented the local statute fairs, or mops— cowmen with the hair 
 of cows twisted in their button-holes, or carters and ploughmen with 
 whip-cord in their hats. Thus the very legislation which was 
 designed to maintain the supply of rural labour and check migra- 
 tion into towns, introduces that principle of freedom of movement 
 which is essential to the modem relations of employer and employed. 
 In another respect, also, the Labour Statutes loosened the depend- 
 ence of bondmen on their manorial lords. The jurisdiction of the 
 king's law courts was extended till it invaded the sacred precincts 
 of the manor court, and settled disputes between the lord and his 
 villeins. Wages even were no longer to be fixed as between a bond- 
 man and his feudal lord ; they were to be controlled by Justices of 
 the Peace acting as the king's agents. It is not suggested that 
 the fifteenth century labourer beinefited by a change which virtually 
 transferred the light of fixing wages to an association of employers. 
 But the transfer of authority was a not unimportant step towards the 
 complete collapse of the manorial organisation, and towards free 
 competition as the true basis of money wages. 
 
THE PASSING OF THE MIDDLE AGES 56 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FARMING FOR PROFIT: PASTURE AND SHEEP- 
 GRAZING. 1485-1558. 
 
 The passmg of the Middle Ages : enclosures in the sixteenth and eighteenth 
 centuries compared ; the commercial impxiJse and its results ; conversion 
 of tillckge to pasture : enclosures and depopulation : legislation against 
 enclosures ; literary attack on enclosures ; the practical defence of en- 
 closures : larger farms in separate occupation : loss of employment ; 
 enclosures equitably arranged, or enforced by tyranny ; legal powers of 
 landowners ; open-field farmers not the chief sufierers by enclosures ; 
 scarcity of emplo3rment and rise in prices ; the new problem of poverty : 
 the ranks of vagrants ; the Elizabethan fraternity of vagabonds. 
 
 OvT of wars at home and abroad, and pestilences destractive both 
 to man and beast, emerged one great agricultural change which 
 by 1485 was practically completed. Feudal landowners, instead of 
 pursuing the patriarchal system of farming their own demesnes 
 by the labour services of their dependents, had become receivers of 
 rent. Home-farms and " assart " or reclaimed lands were culti- 
 vated, not by lords of the manor through bajlifis and labour-rents, 
 but by freeholders, leaseholders, copyholders, and hired labourers. 
 Further changes were close at hand. With the dawn of the Tudor 
 period began the general movement which gradually transformed 
 England into a mercantile country. The amount of money in 
 actual use was increasing ; men possessed more capital, could borrow 
 it more easily, and lay it out to greater advantage. Commerce 
 permeated national life. Feudalism was dead or dying, and trade 
 was climbing to its throne. The Middle Ages were passing into 
 modem times. 
 
 On the agricultural side, the spirit of trading competition gave 
 fresh impulse to an old movement which, in spite of a storm of 
 protest, continued in activity throughout the Tudor period, and, 
 after a century and a half of silent progress, became once more the 
 centre of literary controversy before it triumphed at the close of 
 
56 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 the reign of George lU. That movement is described as enclosure, 
 and it is generally treated as necessarily destructive to the old 
 village farms. But the word includes various processes, some of 
 which rather strengthened than weakened the open-field system. 
 Some enclosures, such as closes for stock-feeding, intakes from the 
 common for arable purposes, even the not uncommon practice of 
 fencing portions of the open-fields for several occupation, whether 
 temporarily or permanently, were really efforts to adapt village 
 farms to changing needs. Another form of enclosure was the culti- 
 vation of new land obtained by clearing forests, approving portions 
 of wastes, or draioing fens. Here also village farms were not 
 directly affected. Indirectly, indeed, these new enclosures pro- 
 duced a considerable effect. Much of the reclaimed land was tilled 
 for com ; thus the ancient arable soil was relieved from the former 
 necessity of bearing grain crops, and might not improbably be put 
 to the use for which it was best adapted. A third process was the 
 direct enclosure of open-fields and pasture commons. This form 
 generally appeared in the neighbourhood of towns, where the 
 demand for animal food and dairy produce was greatest and labour 
 found a ready market, or in counties where some manufacturing 
 industry prevailed and small grass holdings made a less exacting 
 claim on the time of the handicraftsmen than tillage. But what- 
 ever form the enclosure took, the general drift of the movement 
 was towards individual occupation of land. It was therefore 
 always, and particularly in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, 
 directly opposed to the open-field system of fanning in common. 
 At both periods that special form of enclosure was prominent 
 which meant the break-up of the mediaeval agrarian partnerships 
 and the substitution of private enterprise for the collective efforts 
 of village associations. But in details the earlier and the later 
 movements were strongly contrasted. In the sixteenth century, 
 the change was opposed and partially arrested by legislation ; in 
 the eighteenth century, it received from Parliament encouragement 
 and support. Under Henry VIII., it was mainly inspired by com- 
 mercial advantage ; under George III., it was alleged to be enforced 
 by necessity. In the sixteenth century some of the grass-land was 
 undoubtedly used for grazing beasts. But it was maioljr to supply 
 the growing wool trade that Tudor husbandmen substituted pasture 
 for tillage, sheep for com. They took their seats on the wool- 
 sack, and maidens of all degrees were spinsters. Hanoverian 
 
TUDOR AND HANOVERIAN ENCLOSURES 57 
 
 fanners reveised the process ; they valued sheep for their mutton 
 instead of their fleeces, and concentrated their energies on the 
 production of bread and meat for the teeming populations of 
 manufacturing cities. Dearth of bread was in Tudor times the 
 most efEective cry against enclosures ; under Gleorge m. it was 
 the unanswerable plea for their extension. At the opening of the 
 sixteenth century, enclosure did not always mean improved farm- 
 ing ; the conversion of arable land into inferior sheep-waJk was 
 rather retrogression than progress. At the close of the eighteenth 
 century, it at least meant the opportunity for advance and for the 
 introduction of better practices. To some extent, indeed, the 
 different developments of the two movements measure the improve- 
 ments in the methods and the increase in the resources of Hanoveriiin 
 farmers. The Tudor husbandman might devote himself exclusively 
 to the one or the other of the two branches of farming ; but he had 
 not mastered the secret of their union. If he changed from tillage 
 to pasture, he did so completely. He could not, like his successor, 
 combine the two, and by the introduction of new crops, at once 
 grow more com and carry more stock. 
 
 Agriculturally, the period which opens with the Battle of Bos- 
 worth and ends with the early years of Elizabeth is one of transition 
 towards the modem spirit and forms of land cultivation. Like all 
 transition periods, it is full of suffering for those who were least 
 able to adapt themselves to altered conditions. The ruin of noble 
 families by the Wars of the Roses, the lavish expenditure which 
 Henry VUJL. made fashionable, the rise in prices, and the difficulty 
 of raising rents, compelled many " unthrifty gentlemen " to sell 
 their estates. The break-up of landed properties and their passage 
 into new hands favoured the introduction of the commercial impulse. 
 The landholders whose " unreasonable covetousness " is most 
 loudly condemned «rere mainly speculators in land, men who had 
 made money in business, had capital to invest, could afford the 
 exx>ense of enclosures, and were determined to make their estates 
 pay. Such were " the Merchant Adventurers, Clothmakers, Gold- 
 smiths, Butchers, Tanners, and other Artificers," ' — " the merchants 
 of London" who "bie fermes out of the handes of worshypfull gentle- 
 men, honeste yeomen, and pore laborynge husbandes."^ Translated 
 
 ^ Petition to Hemy Vm. (1514), quoted by F. J. Fumivall in BaU/odt 
 from MSS., p. 101 (Pablications of the Ballad Society, voL L). 
 > Thomas Lever's Sermone (1550) ; Arber's Reprints, p. 29. 
 
68 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 into the language of to-day, the old landlords had been satisfied 
 to draw from their estates certain advantages and a low percentage 
 of profit ; the new men required at the least a four per cent, return 
 in money on their investments. Feudal barons had partly valued 
 their land for the number of men-at-arms it furnished to their 
 banners ; Tudor landowners appraised its worth by the amount of 
 rent it paid into their coffers. Mediaeval husbandmen had been 
 content to extract from the soil the food which they needed for 
 themselves and their families. Tudor farmers despised self- 
 sufficing agriculture ; they aspired to be sellers and not consumers 
 only, to raise from their land profits as well as food. As trade 
 expanded, and towns grew, and English wool made its way into 
 continental cities, or was woven into cloth by English weavers, 
 new markets were created for agricultural produce. Fresh in- 
 centives stimulated individual enterprise, and both landlords and 
 tenants learned to look on the land they respectively owned or 
 cultivated as a commercial asset. 
 
 Among the results of this conquest of agriculture by the new 
 spirit of commercial competition three may be noticed — ^firstly, 
 the clearer recognition of the advantages of farms held in individual 
 occupation, large enough to make the employment of capital 
 remunerative ; secondly, the substitution of pasture for tillage, 
 of sheep for com, of wool for meat ; thirdly, the attack upon the 
 old agrarian partnerships in which lords of the manor, parsons, 
 freeholders, leaseholding farmers, copyholders, and cottagers had 
 hitherto associated to supply the wants of each village. Legisla- 
 tion failed to prevent a movement which harmonised and syn- 
 chronised with the progressive development of the nation on 
 commercial lines. But in its earUer stages, the consequences to 
 the rural population were serious. Many tenants lost their hold- 
 ings, many wage-earning labourers their employment, when land- 
 lords " turned graziers," and farmers cut down their labour-bills 
 by converting tillage into pasture. It is impossible to doubt the 
 reality of the distress. From 1487 onwards, literature, pamphlets, 
 doggerel ballads, sermons, liturgies, petitions, preambles to statutes. 
 Commissions of Enquiry, Acts of Parliament, bear witness to a 
 considerable depopulation of country districts. In the numerous 
 insurrections, which marked the sixteenth century and the early 
 years of the reign of James I., rural distress undoubtedly con- 
 tributed its share. But zealous advocates of Roman Catholicism 
 
SHEEP-FARMING 69 
 
 found it useful to ally agrarian discontent with religions leaction, 
 and men like Protector Somerset thoaght it politic to attribute 
 anti-Protestant risings entirely to agricultural causes. 
 
 There was no novelty in the withdrawal of demesne lands from 
 the open-field farm and their partition into individual occupations ; 
 or in fencing o£E portions of tiie home-farm and of the reclaimed 
 " assart " lands as separate plots ; or in the appropriation of parts 
 of the commonable waste for private use ; or in the encouragement 
 given to partners in the village association to throw their scattered 
 strips together into one compact holding. Each of these processes 
 had been for many years in progress ; each had necessitated 
 enclosures ; none had required the decay of farm-houses and 
 cottages, loss of employment, eviction of tenants, or rural depopula- 
 tion. But from the Tudor enclosing movement these consequences 
 did necessarily result, because its objects were the promotion of 
 sheep-farming, the conversion of tillage into pasture, the con- 
 solidation and enlargement of grass holdings. If farmers had not 
 yet at their disposal the means of realising the full Iruth of the 
 maxim that " the foot of the sheep turns sand into gold," the new 
 commercial aristocracy were quick to see that money was to be 
 made, or at least to be saved, by the growth of wool. It is true 
 that down to 1540 the prices of wool remained low ; but some at 
 least of the grass was taken up by the graziers, and the saving in 
 labour effected by pasture farming was great. Sheep could not be 
 herded with success on open commons, still less on the arable lands 
 of village farms, and small holdings were incompatible with large 
 flocks. It was these new elements which upset the calculations of 
 agriculturists like Eitzherbert (1523), or Cardinal Pole ^ in Starkey's 
 Dialogue (1536), or Tusser (1557), or Standish (1611), who hoped 
 that the economic advantages of enclosure might be secured without 
 the social loss which the conversion of large tracts of arable land 
 into wide pasture farms inflicted on the rural population. 
 
 If evidence which is rarely impartial may be impUcitly trusted, 
 considerable tracts of cultivated land were converted into wilder- 
 nesses, traversed only by shepherds and their dogs ; roofless 
 granges and half -ruined churches alone marked the sites of former 
 hamlets ; the " deserted village " was a reality of the sixteenth 
 
 ' In the Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupaet, Pole defends 
 enclosures for pasture on the plea that cattle, as well as com, were necessary 
 for human food {England in the Beign of Henry VIII., ed. J. M. Cowper, 
 E.E.T.S., extra series xxxii. 1878). 
 
60 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 century. Already anxious for the maintenance of the national 
 supply of com, men began to be alarmed at another result of the 
 movement which became increasingly prominent. John Rous ^ 
 (1411-91), chantry priest of Guy's CliSe and Warwickshire antiquary, 
 was the first to protest agaiost the decay of population caused in 
 the midland counties by enclosures for pasture farming. To this 
 rural exodus the attention of Parliament had been called by the 
 Lord Chancellor in the first year of Richard m. (1484). Francis 
 Bacon, writing of the opening years of the reign of Henry VII., 
 says : ^ " Inclosures at that time began to be more frequent, 
 whereby arable land, which could not be manured without people 
 and families, was turned into pasture which was easily rid by a 
 few herdsmen ; and tenances for years, lives, and at will, whereupon 
 much of the yeomanry lived, were turned into demesnes. This 
 bred a decay of people." So formidable did the danger begin to 
 appear, that in 1489 two Acts of Parhament were passed for its 
 prevention. The first Act was local, dealing with the effects of 
 enclosures in the Isle of Wight from the point of view of national 
 defence ; the second is general, directed " against the pulling down 
 of tounes " (i.e. townships or villages). These Acts were the pre- 
 cursors of many others throughout the sixteenth century ,3 for- 
 bidding the conversion of arable land into pasture, ordering newly 
 laid pasture to be restored to tillage, directing enclosures to be 
 thrown down, requiring decayed hotises to be rebuilt, limiting the 
 number of sheep and of farms which could legally be held by one 
 man, and imposing severe penalties for disobedience to the new 
 provisions. 
 
 No favour was shown by Parliament to enclosers, except perhaps 
 in the case of deer-parks. On the contrary, strenuous efforts were 
 repeatedly made to stop the process of enclosure. Nor wafi the 
 Grovemment satisfied with passing laws and imposing penalties. 
 Wolsey personally interested himself in enforcing obedience to the 
 laws against the decay of houses and farm-buildings and against 
 
 '■ BUtoria Begvm Angliae, ed. 1746, pp. 116-24. But Thomas Eeame was 
 not always a reliable editor. 
 
 'Hittory of King Benry the Seventh {Worka, ed. Spedding, voL vi. pp. 
 93-4). 
 
 * E.g. 1489 (4 Hen. Vn. oc. 16, 19) ; 1514 (6 Hen. Vin. o. 6) ; 1616 (7 Hen. 
 Vni. o. 1) ; 1633-4 (26 Hen. Vm. o. 13) ; 1536-6 (27 Hen. Vm. c. 22) ; 
 1661-2 (6 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 6) ; 1666 (2 and 3 Phil, and Maiy, c. 2) ; 1662-3 
 (6 Eliz. 0. 2) ; 1593 (36 Eliz. c. 7, repealing part of 6 Eliz. c. 2) ; 1697-8 (39 
 Eliz. c. 1) ; 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 9) ; in 1624 the enclosure laws were repealed. 
 
LEGISLATION AGAINST SHEEP-WALKS 61 
 
 the conversion of arable land to pasture. Active steps were taken 
 to see that buildings were restored and enclosures and ditches 
 levelled. In default, heavy penalties were exacted. A Com- 
 mission was appointed in 1517,^ which enquired into all cases where 
 farm-houses had been destroyed since 1485, or where ploughs had 
 been put down by the increase of pasture farming. Similar 
 enquiries were held in 1548, 1566, and 1607. No doubt these 
 strenuous efforts checked the movement. But they failed to stop 
 it altogether. In this respect they succeeded no better in encourag- 
 ing tillage than the quaint pedantry of the law, which gave arable 
 land precedence over other land, or conferred on beasts of the 
 plough privileges that were denied to other animals. The new 
 legislation seems to have been satisfied, or evaded, without serious 
 difficulty; partly, because compositions for breaches of its provisions 
 might be paid or exemptions purchased; partly, no doubt, because 
 the administration of the law was often entrusted to those who 
 were interested in making it a dead letter. The destruction of 
 farm buildings was forbidden ; but it was easy to keep within the 
 statute by retaining a single room for the shepherd or the milk- 
 maid ; a solitary furrow driven across newly laid pasture satisfied 
 the law that it should be restored to tillage ; the number of sheep 
 to be owned by one man was limited, but the ownership of flocks 
 might be fathered en sons or servants. Down to the middle of 
 the reign of Elizabeth the enclosing and grazing movement con- 
 tinued. At subsequent intervals it renewed its special activity 
 throughout the seventeenth century, when dairying began to claim 
 a larger share of the attention of farmers. It was restrained or 
 encouraged rather by natural causes than by legislation. Fluctua- 
 tions in the prices of wool or com, the increased profits of improved 
 methods of arable farming, and the restoration of the fertility of 
 the ancient tilled land, which was brought back to the plough 
 after an enforced rest from excessive cropping, gradually restored 
 the preponderance of tillage over pasture. 
 
 The grievances of the rural population are to be gathered not only 
 from legislation, proclamations, petitions, articles of complaint, the 
 Returns of Commissioners, or the records of the law courts. They 
 are also written large in More's Utopia, and in much of the ephemeral 
 literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The cry of 
 the people is heard, often in exaggerated tones, in the sermons of 
 
 1 The Dometdajf of Indoturea (1617-8), by L S. Leadom, 2 vols. 1897. 
 
62 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 popular preachers like Tyndale, Becon, and Latimer, in the pam- 
 phlets of such writers as Simon Fish, Henry Brinklow, or Philip 
 Stubbes, or in the rhymes of versifiers like " Sir " William Forrest, 
 Robert Crowley, and Thomas Bastard, or in such anonymous 
 ballads as " Nowe-a-dayes " : ^ 
 
 " The townes go down, the land decayea ; 
 OS comefeyldes, playne layea (grass-land) ; 
 Gret men makithe now a dayes 
 A shepecott in the church. 
 
 Commons to close and kepe ; 
 Poor folk for bred to cry and wepe ; 
 Towns pulled downe to pastur shepe ; 
 This ys the new gyse !" 
 
 Throughout the burden is the same — enclosure of commons, con- 
 version of plough-land into pasture, sheep-farming, excessive rents, 
 exorbitant fines, consolidation of small holdings into large farms, 
 decay of houses and farm-buildings, formation of deer-parks, and, 
 more rarely, enclosure of open-field arable farms. Here are to be 
 found fierce denunciations of the " caterpillars of the common- 
 weal," * who " join lordship to lordship, manor to manor, farm to 
 farm, land to land, pasture to pasture," and gather many thousands 
 of acres of ground " together within one pale or hedge " ; or of the 
 unchristian landlords, who " rack and stretch out the rents of 
 their larids," taking " unreasonable fines," " setting their pore 
 tenants so straitely uppon the tenter hookes as no man can Ijrve 
 on them " ; * or of the insatiable " cormorants " who " let two or 
 three tenantries unto one man," " take in their commons " till not 
 so much as a garden ground is safe, and make " parks or pastures 
 of whole parishes " ; * or of the " unreasonable covitous persones 
 whiche doth encroche daily many ffermes more than they can be 
 able to occupye or mainteyne with tilth for come as hath been used 
 in tymes past, forasmoche as divers of them hath obteyned and 
 encrochfed into their handes, X, XII, XIV, or XVI fermes in oon 
 mannes hand attons " ;S or of the " ambicious suttletie " of those 
 
 1 " Nowe-»-dayes," Ballads from MSS., ed. P. J. FumivaU (Publications of 
 the Ballad Society, vol. L p. 97, 1868). 
 
 * Thomas Becon, Jewel of Joy (Parker Society, Beeon's Workt, p. 432). 
 
 * Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Ahusea (1683), (New Shakespeare Society, 
 p. 116). 
 
 < William Tyndale, Dodrmal Treatites (Parker Society, p. 201). 
 
 ' Petition to Henry VIII., quoted in BaUadafrom MSS., vol. i. p. 101. 
 
CONDEMNATION OF ENCLOSURES 63 
 
 who make " one fearme of two or three," and even sometimes 
 " bringe VI to one " ; or of the greed of " step-lords," like the 
 " rich franklings," ^ who 
 
 " Occupyinge a dosen men's lyvyngis 
 Take all in their owne hondee alone." 
 
 Nor do the innocent causes of much of the trouble escape attack ; 
 sheep " that were wont to be so mjke and tame, and so smal eaters, 
 now, as I heare sade, be become so greate devowerers, and so wylde, 
 that they eate up and swallow down the very men themselfes," * 
 drive " husbandry " out of the country, and thrust " Christian 
 labourers " off the land. 
 
 " Sheepe have eate up our medovs and our downes. 
 Our come, our wood, whole villages and townes ; 
 Tea, they have eate up many wealthy men. 
 Besides widowes and orphEme childeren ; 
 Besides our statutes and our Iron Lawes, 
 Which they have swallowed down into their maws : — 
 Till now I thought the proverbe did but jest. 
 Which said a blacke sheepe was a biting beast." ^ 
 
 Enclosers were condemned by preachers as " guilty before God of 
 the sin in the text — ' they have sold the righteous for silver and the 
 poor for a pair of shoes.' " A playwright like Massinger did not 
 draw entirely on his imagination, but expressed the feeling of the 
 day when he painted his portrait of a Sir Giles Overreach, insensible 
 to pity for his victims and justly called : 
 
 "Extortioner, Tyrant, Cormorant, or Intruder 
 On my poor neighbour's right, or grand Incloser 
 Of what was common to my private use." * 
 
 In the passion for sheep and hedges, which changed " merrie 
 England " into " sighing or sorrowful England," men saw the 
 fulfilment of the prophecy " Home and Thome shall make England 
 forlome." ^ Superstitions enforced the popular judgment, and 
 legend doomed " emparkers," like Sir John Townley, to haunt the 
 solitudes they had created, uttering bitter cries of unavailing 
 remorse. 
 
 >"Bede me and be nott Wrothe." By William Boy (1627), Arber's 
 Reprints, 28. 
 
 * More's Utopia, bk. L (Ralph Robynson's Translation), ed. Lupton, p. 61. 
 3 Bastard's Chrestoleros (1698), bk. iv. Epigram 20. 
 
 * A New Way to pay Old Debts, Act. iv. Sc. 1. 
 
 » Francis Trigge, Humble Petition of Two Sisters : the Church and the Com- 
 numweaUh (1604). 
 
64 FAEMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 It was eaay for popiilor preachers and pamphleteers to excite 
 popular passion against the " greedy gulls " and " insatiable 
 cormorants," who advocated and practised enclosures, and to 
 denounce the agricultural tendencies of Tudor times as solely 
 guided by selfish greed. But there are practical and broader sides 
 to the question. When once land was regarded as an important 
 asset in the wealth of the nation, national interests demanded that 
 it should be utilised to the greatest possible advantage. Without 
 enclosures, the soil could not be used for the piu^oses to which it 
 was best adapted, or its resources fully developed. If money was 
 to be made out of land, or if its full productive ■pawei was to be 
 realised, it was individual enterprise alone that could make or 
 realise either. Under the open-field system one man's idleness 
 might cripple the industry of twenty : only on enclosed farms, 
 separately occupied, could men secure the full fruit of their enter- 
 prise. This fact had slowly revealed itself during the last two 
 centuries. To exchange intermixed lands, to consolidate compact 
 holdings, and fence them off in separate occupation, had long been 
 the aim both of landlords and tenant-farmers. Few practical 
 men would have disputed the truth of Fuller's statement : " The 
 poor man who is monarch of but one enclosed acre will receive 
 more profit from it than from his share of many acres in common 
 with others." 
 
 Tudor agriculturists went further in their zeal for farming pro- 
 gress. They saw that a small enclosed plot of 15 acres could be 
 used with less advantage than a large enclosure of 150 acres which 
 enabled the tenant to invest money in the land, carry more stock, 
 provide his cattle with more winter food, and, if the climate per- 
 mitted, adopt convertible husbandry. This was recognised both 
 by landowners and farmers of the progressive school, and the 
 increased size even of arable farms continues to be a feature in 
 sixteenth century changes. For successful sheep-farming, a large 
 stretch of land, held in individual occupation, was stiU more 
 essential. From this point of view the untilled common wastes 
 were unprofitable. Whether land was enclosed for tillage or as sheep 
 runs, its productiveness was increased by enclosure. Finally, the 
 natural fertility of arable land on open unenclosed farms was 
 becoming exhausted. The system was one of taking much from 
 the land and putting little back. The soil, lightly ploughed, seldom 
 manured, often foul, was in some districts worn-out. From 1349 
 
DRAWBACKS TO OPEN-FIELD FARMING 66 
 
 to 1485, that is, from the Black Death to the Battle of Bosworth, 
 its yield had declined ; its farming had deteriorated. Fitzherbert, 
 writing in the fiist quarter of the sixteenth century, notes that 
 useful agricultural practices had in many parts become obsolete, 
 that crops were smaller, and methods of husbandry more slovenly. 
 The fall in rentals had been general. But it was on demesne lands, 
 or on enclosed farms, that the fall in rents had been least. These 
 were the lands which were in the best condition, because on them 
 most manure had been expended. Open-field farmers commanded 
 httle or no manure for their arable land, and were practically 
 dependent on sheep for fertilising the soil. Yet in winter, 
 animals, reduced to the lowest possible number, barely sur- 
 vived on straw and tree-loppings. The miserable condition of 
 live-stock on open-field farms and commons exposed the sheep to 
 the scab and the rot, and the cattle to the murrain. It was no 
 uncommon spectacle to see the head of an ox impaled on a stake 
 by the highway, as a warning that the township was infected. 
 
 Agriculturists might with good reason plead that the changes 
 which they advocated were justified, if not necessitated, by the 
 progress of farming. They hoped that even open-field farmers 
 might themselves recognise the advantages of enclosure, and would 
 agree to consolidate their intermixed holdings and extinguish their 
 reciprocal rights of common. Fitzherbert in his Book of Husbandry 
 argues strongly in favour of enclosures, and especially insists on 
 their advantages in keeping live-stock, which, he saj^, thrive best 
 and cost least on enclosed land. If a farmer has only a twenty 
 years' lease of his land, it will pay ^lim to go to the expense of 
 fraicing ofi his land in separate parcels with hedges and ditches. 
 C!ommon-field farmers have to pay 2d. a quarter for each head of 
 cattle, and Id. a quarter for each head of swine, under the care of 
 the common herdsman and swineherd. If they wish to thrive, 
 each must keep a shepherd of his own. The hire of the herdsman 
 and the swiaeherd, together with the wages and board of the 
 shepherd, and the cost of hurdles and stakes put together, double 
 the rent. If a farmer encloses, he may have to pay three times 
 this annual cost in one year ; but he has no further expense. 
 " Than hathe he euery fyelde in seueraltie : and by the assente 
 of the lordes and the tenauntes euery neyghbour may exchaunge 
 landes with other. And than shall his farme be twyse so good in 
 proflite to the tenaunte as it was before, and as muche lande kepte 
 
 E 
 
66 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 in tyllage, and than shall not the ryche man ouer-eate the poore 
 man with his cattell, and the fourth parte of haye and strawe shall 
 seme his cattell better in a pasture than foure tymes so muche 
 will dooe in a house, and less attendaunce, and better the cattell 
 shall lyke, and it is the chiefest sauegarde for come bothe daye 
 and nyght that may be." To the same effect wrote Tusser in the 
 comparison between " champion " (or open-field) " and severall " 
 (or enclosed) in his Five Hundreth Good Pointea of Good Hvsbandrie 
 (1573). 
 
 "More profit is quieter found, 
 
 (Where pastures in severall bee); 
 Of one seelie aker of ground 
 
 Than champion maketh of three. 
 
 The t'one is commended for groin, 
 
 Yet bread made of beanes they doo eate ; 
 
 The t'other for one loafe have twaine 
 Of mastlin, of tie, or of wheate." 
 
 But the agriculturists did not anticipate that one shepherd, with 
 his dog, his crook, shears, and tar-box, might take the place of 
 many ploughmen. They had not reckoned on the strength of the 
 new commercial spirit, and of the impulse which it gave to large 
 grazing farms. The area of land actually returned as enclosed and 
 converted to pasture was relatively small. It has been calculated 
 that, durii^ a period of nearly two centuries, — that is, from 1455 
 to 1637, — the total acreage enclosed and converted did not exceed 
 750,000 acres, and that the total number of persons thrown out of 
 work was not greater than 35,000.^ At the present day, four 
 million acres of arable land may in fifteen years be converted into 
 pasture without calling the serious attention of a single statesman 
 
 ' Mr. Gay's estimate of the total area afiected between the years 1466 and 
 1607 is 616,673 acres (" Inclosures in England " in Qitairterly JowmcA of 
 Economics, voL zvii. pp. 676-97). He admits that this is probably an under- 
 estimate. The figure given in the test is the calculation made by the Bev. 
 A. H. Johnson in The DUappearance of the 8mM Landoumer (1909), pp. 48, 68. 
 
 On the other hand, a contemporary writer {Oertayne causes gathered 
 together. Four Supplications, E.E.T.S. extra series ziii.,pp. 101-2) estimates that 
 at that time (1661) 60,000 ploughs had been put down, and that each plough 
 not only mainteuned six persons, but provided food in addition for 7^ persons. 
 In other words, upwards of 660,000 persons lost their means of support. This 
 is an obvious exaggeration. 
 
 More than two-thirds of the oxbb. affected lay in the Midland counties 
 (" in umbehco regni," as Kous writes), and especially in Northamptonshire, 
 Oxfordshire, Bucks, Warwick, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordi^bire, and 
 Huntingdonshire. The northern and southern counties were almost untouched. 
 In the west, Gloucestershire, and in the east, Korfolk, were the only districts 
 seriously a£Eected. 
 
RURAL DEPOPULATION 67 
 
 to the consequent loss of employment and rural depopulation. Bat 
 
 small though the acreage may have been, it was considerable in 
 
 proportion to the cultivated area, and the suffering was undeniably 
 
 great. The distress was aggravated by the disbanding of the great 
 
 retinues which had been maintained in feudal households, and by 
 
 the consequent disturbance of the labour market. It was still 
 
 more intensified by the suppression of the monasteries (1536-42). 
 
 Not only were a very large number of dependents deprived of their 
 
 livelihood, but enclosures on the old ecclesiastical estates were 
 
 carried out with peculiar harshness. The new owners among whom 
 
 the monastic lands were distributed, bound by no sentimental tie 
 
 to the existing tenants, claimed that the royal grant EumuUed all 
 
 titles derived from the previous owners, entered on their possessions 
 
 as though they were vacant of leaseholders or copyholders, and 
 
 enclosed the land for sheep-runs. The doggerel ballad, " Vox 
 
 Populi, Vox Dei " (1549),^ laments the consequences of the change 
 
 of ownership : 
 
 " We have shut away aU doisteis. 
 But still we keep eztortioiieTS : 
 We have taken their lands for their abuse, 
 But we have converted them to a worse use." 
 
 Voluntary agreements for the valuation and commutation of 
 rights of common were often entered into between tenants and 
 landowners, and bargains were struck on equitable terms. Instances 
 like that given in the following extract from Rennet's Parochial 
 AntiguUiea ^ might be indefinitely multipUed : " The said Edmund 
 Rede, Esquire granted and confirmed to Thomas Billyngdon one close 
 in Adyngrave, in consideration whereof the said Thomas Billyngdon 
 quitted and resigned his right to the free pasturage of four oxen to 
 feed with the cattle of the said Edmund Rede and all right to any 
 common in the said pasture or inlandys of the said Edmund." 
 Here in 1437 was the principle of commutation of rights of common 
 accepted and enforced by private contract. In other cases a 
 semblance of agreement may have been secured by threats. But 
 justice was not always perverted in the interests of landlords. 
 Attempted acts of oppression were frequently checked by the 
 courts of law. As an instance may be quoted the proposed en- 
 closure of the common-fields at Welcombe, near Stratford-on- 
 
 1 Ballade from M88. 11. 638-41. The spelling is modernized. (Publication 
 of the Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 139.) 
 « VoL u. 324. 
 
68 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 Avon.^ The example ia the more interesting because it leveaJs one 
 of the rare appearances of William Shakespeare in pubUc life. In 
 1614 William Combe, of Stratford-on-Avon, the Cro\ni tenant of 
 the " College," wished to withdraw his arable land from the open- 
 field farm of Welcombe, enclose it, and lay it down to pasture. He 
 aJso wished to enclose so much of the ancient greensward or pasture 
 as his rights of pasturage represented. To his scheme he had 
 obtained the consent of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, as representative 
 of the Crown, and the active co-operation of the Chancellor's 
 steward. Shakespeare, however, was in a position to be a formidable 
 opponent, for he not only owned land adjoining, but also held the 
 unexpired term of a lease of half the tithes of the open-fields. But 
 a deed, dated October 28, 1614, secured him from any loss of tithe 
 through the conversion of tillage into pasture, and his consent to 
 the enclosure was obtained. Combe had now only to deal with 
 the Corporation of Stratford, who offered a strenuous resistance. 
 Strong language did not move them ; in the Corporation MS. the 
 witnesses are duly noted who heard him call them " Purtan knaves," 
 " doggs and curres." Tempting offers were refused, though Combe 
 proposed to compensate them in more than the value of the tithe, 
 to undertake the perpetual repair of the highways passing over 
 the land, and to increase the value of the rights of freeholders and 
 tenants by waiving part of his claim to turn out sheep and cattle 
 on the commons. Then Combe took matters into his own hands, 
 and prepared to enclose his land by surrounding it with a ditch. 
 This brought the dispute to a crisis. Not apparently without the 
 knowledge of the Town Clerk, the townspeople filled in the ditch. 
 A breach of the peace seemed imminent. The matter was, there- 
 fore, referred to the law-coiuis, and at Warwick Assizes, on March 
 27, 1616, Lord Chief Justice Coke made an order that " noe inclosure 
 shalbe made within the parish of Stratforde." The Dingles, which 
 formed part of the common-fields of Welcombe, remain uninclosed 
 to this day. 
 
 Instances of the tyrannical use of power could also be quoted. 
 The Tudor age was rough, and might was sometimes right. Sir 
 Thomas More in his Utopia (1616) paints this side to the picture, 
 when he speaks of " husbandmen . . . thrust owte of their owne, or 
 els by coveyne and fraude or by vyolent oppression they be put 
 
 > Shakespeare and the Endoavre of Common Fields at Weloombe, edited by 
 C. M. Ingleby (1886). 
 
METHODS OF CONSOLIDATING ESTATES 69 
 
 besydes it, or by wronges and injuries they be so weried that they 
 
 be compelled to sell all." If a small freeholder or copyholder proved 
 
 obstinate, the proceedings of Sir Giles Overreach, in A New Way 
 
 to Pay Old Debts (Act ii. Sc. 1), may illustrate the methods by which 
 
 a Naboth's vineyard, even when it belonged to a manorial lord, 
 
 might be appropriated by a wealthy capitalist : 
 
 " I'll therefore buy some cottage near his manor, 
 Which done, I'll make my men breckk ope his fences. 
 Ride o'er his standing com, and in the night 
 Set fire on his bams, or break his cattle's legs. 
 These trespasses draw on siiits, and suits expenses 
 Which I can spare, but will soon beggar him. 
 When I have harried him thus two or three year. 
 Though he sue in fonnd pauperis, in spite 
 Of all his thrift and care he'U grow behindhand. 
 
 Then, with the favour of my mem at law, 
 I will pretend some title : want will force him 
 To put it to arbitrement. Then if he sell 
 For half the value he shall have ready money. 
 And I possess his land." 
 
 Considerations of mutual advantage, equitable bargains, fair pur- 
 chase, superior force, legal chicanery, threats and bullyrag, were 
 all at work to hasten the change to the individual occupation of 
 land, and the consoUdation of separate holdings. If copyholders 
 or commoners appealed to the law-courts, matters, no doubt, some- 
 times ended as they were friended. " Handy-dandy " was in the 
 Middle Ages a proverbial expression for the covert bribe offered by 
 a suitor, and the occasional perversion of justice is enshrined in the 
 Latin jingle : Jus sine jure datur, si nummus in aure loqtuUur. 
 
 Illegal evictions are not included among the grievances alleged by 
 the leaders in any of the risings of the peasantry which marked 
 the Tudor period. Their absence from these lists justify the con- 
 clusion that open illegaUty was at least rare. But the law itself 
 gave landowners abundant opportunities of regaining possession of 
 the land. Leaseholders for a term of years or for lives had no legal 
 claim to a renewal of their leases, when the term of years had 
 expired or the last life had dropped. Bents might then be raised 
 to aji exorbitant sum or extravagant fines exacted, and, unless the 
 tenant was prepared to pay the increased charge, he must surrender 
 his holding. Cottagers or squatters on the waste could rarely 
 show any legal claim to the occupation of land, and the tenancy of 
 a cottage to which rights of common attached could be practically 
 determined by enhancing the rent. Copyholders were, in all 
 
70 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 probability, almost equally insecure in their holdings. So long as 
 they were in possession, the court roll was evidence of the incidents 
 of their tenure. But the law was still vague as to rights of suc- 
 cession to copyholds. It may be doubted whether copyholds of 
 inheritance were yet known, and it is reasonably certain that. the 
 normal copyhold was for a term of years or for lives. At the 
 expiration of the term of years or of the last life, normal copy- 
 holders were at the mercy of the lord. Even if copyholds of inheri- 
 tance were recognised by lawyers in the sixteenth century, they 
 were still insecure. Their titles must often have been incapable 
 of legal proof ; they might be forfeited by some real or technical 
 breach of custom ; their renewal was subject to the payment of 
 fines on admittance, which might, where no manorial custom fixed 
 the sum, be arbitrary in amount. It was not till the close of the 
 eighteenth century that the law fixed the limits of a reasonable 
 fine, and, if the fines were arbitrary, the landlord had a weapon 
 with which even copyholds of inheritance, as vmderstood by modem 
 lawyers, might be determined. It is impossible to doubt that 
 exorbitant rents and excessive fines, of which the peasant leaders, 
 preachers, and pamphleteers so bitterly complain, were sometimes 
 used to dispossess leaseholders and copyholders. The powers were 
 legal ; but their exercise often worked injustice. Yet it should be 
 remembered, on the other side, that the raising of rents or the 
 enhancing of fines, whenever the opportunity occurred, were the 
 only means of adjusting the landlord's income to the great rise in 
 the prices of agricultural produce. In the Compendious or Briefe 
 Examination ^ the Knight puts the landlord's case. " In all my 
 life time," he says, "I looke not that the thirde part of my lande shall 
 come to my dispocition that I may enhaunce the rent of the same, 
 but it shalbe in mens holdinges either by lease or by copie graunted 
 before my time. . . . We cannot rayse all our wares as youe maye 
 yours." Rents, based on the commutation of labour services at a 
 fixed annual sum in the fourteenth century did not represent the 
 annual value of the land in 1560. Nor were fines for renewal or on 
 
 * The CompenMouB or brief e Exa/rmnation of certayne ordinary complairUs 
 of divers of our countrymen in these our dayes was printed in 1681, and the 
 authoiship is attributed to " W. S. Gentleman." But Miss Lamond dis- 
 covered, edited, and published (1893) an edition from a MS. probably written 
 in 1649. She gives reasons for assigning its authorship to Jolm Hales. 
 " W. S." may have been William Stafford (1664-1612) ; but that he was not 
 the writer appears to have been conclusively proved. 
 
STRONG POSITION OF OPEN-FIELD FARMERS 71 
 
 admittance always excessive. Roger Wilbraham,^ of Delamere in 
 Cheshire, about the middle of the seventeenth century, left behiad 
 him instructions for his heir : " It will be expected of my heir that 
 he deale no worse with tenants than I have done. And for his 
 directions I have set down ye yearly values according to which I 
 deale and wold have him to deale with the tenants. My rule in 
 leasing is to take for a fine from ancient tenants : 8 years' value 
 for 3 lives, 6 years' value to add 2 lives to 1, 2 years' value to add 1 
 life to 2, 1 year's value to change a life, or more if there is any great 
 disparity in years betwixt the lives." When, therefore, rents were 
 raised or fines enhanced, the landlord was not always trying to dis- 
 possess his tenant. As often as not, he was claiming his proper 
 share of the tenant's " unearned increment." 
 
 Against these weapons of the law the cultivators of the old 
 home-farms and of the assart lands were practically defenceless. 
 It is therefore natural to suppose that they were the principal 
 sufferers by the enclosing movement. In their case enclosures did 
 not of necessity involve any breach of the old or new law. 
 Even the provisions of the Tudor legislation were not infringed, 
 unless the land, thus cleared of its cultivators, was so used as to 
 throw any number of holdings together into the hands of one man, 
 to " decay " farm-buildings or houses, to convert tillage into 
 pasture, and so put down ploughs, or to carry an illegal number 
 of sheep. But open-field farmers were in a stronger position. The 
 common rights, which each partner in the association enjoyed over 
 the whole cultivated area of the village-farm, could only be ex- 
 tinguished by agreement, real or 'enforced, among the commoners. 
 Nor was this consent the only obstacle to enclosure which the 
 system presented. The intermixture of the strips is recognised as 
 a protection against enclosure by the ablest of the sixteenth century 
 writers on the subject. In the Compendious or Briefe Examination 
 both the Doctor and the Husbandman agree as to the dif&culties 
 which these two features of the open-field system threw in the way 
 of any general enclosure. The same points are insisted upon by 
 eighteenth century writers. It is not, of course, asserted that the 
 difficulties of enclosing open-field farms were insuperable. Ever 
 since the thirteenth century, village farms had been broken up, 
 both by large landowners and comparatively small freeholders. 
 
 ' Quoted from the Wilbraham MSS. at Delcuneie by F. K. Twemlow in The 
 Twemlowa : their Wives, and their Homes (1910), p. 17. 
 
72 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 But, before the enclosure acts of the eighteenth century, it was a 
 slow and piecemeal process, by which the principal landlord, or 
 some freeholder who was a partner in the farm, gradually con- 
 solidated in his own hands the whole or a part of the commonable 
 cultivated land, enclosed it, and freed it from common rights. No 
 doubt the Enclosure of uncultivated wastes injured the tenants 
 of village farms, because it restricted the area of rough pasture 
 grazed by their hve-stock. Enclosures of this kind, carried out 
 without leaving a sufGiciency of common pasture, were the chief 
 grievance of the peasantry in Kett's rebellion in Norfolk. In 
 this connection the re-enactment by Edward VI. of the statutes 
 of Merton and Westminster,^ is significant. But the meaning is 
 obscure. It may have been intended to increase the amount of 
 tillage by bringing new land under the plough in exchange for that 
 which had been laid down to grass. Except through the attack 
 upon their pasture commons, it is reasonable to conclude that open- 
 field farmers escaped the storm of sixteenth century enclosures 
 more hghtly than the less protected cultivators of demesnes and 
 " assart " lands. This seems to have been the case. Bitter com- 
 plaints were made against the enclosure of open-fields. But the 
 outcry was practically confined to the corn-growing counties of the 
 Midlands, which throughout the whole period were seething with 
 discontent and insurrection. Yet even here, with the exception of 
 Leicestershire, the enclosing movement cannot have, to any great 
 extent, succeeded, since these are the very counties which, in the 
 eighteenth century, still contained the largest proportion of " cham- 
 pion " or open land. 
 
 Advanced free-traders might agree with Raleigh that England, 
 like Holland, could be wholly suppUed with grain from abroad 
 without troubling the people with tillage. Others of a less theo- 
 retical turn of mind looked no further than the immediate distress 
 which the abandonment of tillage produced. If the enclosing 
 movement had been accompanied by a large extension of arable 
 farming, the market for agricultural labour might have been so 
 enlarged as substantially to relieve agrarian distress. But the 
 extension of pasture and the substitution of a shepherd and his 
 dog for the ploughmen and their teams only increased the scarcity 
 of employment. Tenant-farmers lost their leaseholds ; copy- 
 holders were dispossessed of their holdings ; squatters and cottagers, 
 1 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 3. (See p. 38.) 
 
DISTRESS m RURAL DISTRICTS 73 
 
 who had eked out their harvest earnings by the produce of the 
 live-stock which they maintained on the commons, were ruined ; 
 servants in husbandry and labourers for weekly wages were thrown 
 out of work. The high prices of necessaries, combined with the loss 
 of commons, the ravages of the murrain, and a succession of dry 
 summers, had driven many small cultivators over the narrow 
 border-line which separated them from starvation. Rents rose 
 exorbitantly till, for farmers at rack-rent, existence became a 
 misery. There was an ominous growth of middlemen, " lease- 
 mongers, who take groundes by lease to the entente to lette them 
 againe for double and tripple the rente," '- and battened on the 
 land-hunger of the people. Legislators were bewildered by currency 
 questions, and violent changes in the standard purity of the gold 
 and silver coinage aggravated the distress by raising or lowering 
 prices. As gold and silver poured into the Old World from America, 
 prices rose throughout Europe. The rise was in England attributed 
 to every cause other than the cheapening of the precious metals. 
 While from one or the other of these causes the purchasing power 
 of wages rapidly diminished, their nominal value remained station- 
 ary, and labourers were forced to accept the statutory rates. 
 
 It was on those agriculturists who were unwilling or unable to 
 adapt themselves to the times that the blow fell with the greatest 
 severity. The Husbandman in the Compenndwms Examination knew 
 several of his neighbours who had " turned ether part or all theire 
 arable grounde into pasture, and therby have wezed verie Rich 
 men." These were the men of whom Harrison and Sir Thomas 
 Smith speak as " coming to such wealth that they are able and 
 do daily buy lands of unthrifty gentlemen and make . . . their 
 sons gentlemen." But the Husbandman himself, having " enclosed 
 litle or nothinge of my grownd, could never be able to make up 
 my lorde's rent, weare it not for a Htle brede of neate, shepe, swine, 
 gese and hens." Hence it is that, while Latimer laments the 
 d^radation of small yeomen who, like his father, had farms of 
 " three to four pounds a year at the uttermost," Harrison describes 
 the rise of substantial farmers and of the middle classes, and their 
 improved standard of living. The distribution of wealth was 
 becoming more and moie unequal ; the problem of poverty was 
 acquiring a new significance. In the growing struggle for existence 
 
 1 Robert Crowley's Way to Wealth (1660). See also his Epigrams "of 
 LeasemongoTS " and " of Bent rayseis." 
 
74 FAEMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 it was possible for men, who were neither infirm nor idle, to lose 
 their footing. Voluntary almsgiving was tried and proved inade- 
 quate. QraduaUy and cautiously the legislators of the reign of 
 Elizabeth were forced to apply the principle of compulsory pro- 
 vision for the relief of the necessitous .^ Previous legislation, in 
 dealing with the impotent poor, had outlined the systems of local 
 liability and of settlement which were adopted in the later poor- 
 laws ; but it had been mainly concerned with the suppression of 
 those persons who were styled idle rogues and vagabonds. The 
 object explains, though to modem ideas it cannot justify, the 
 harshness of the law. Able-bodied men and women, who were 
 willing to work but had lost their livelihood, were unknown to the 
 legislators who had sketched the first poor-laws for the reUef of 
 the impotent poor and the punishment of sturdy beggars {vaiidi 
 mendicantes). Our ancestors did not discriminate closely between 
 the different sources of poverty. To them, as is stated in the 
 preamble to the statute of Henry Vlll.,* " ydlenes " was the 
 " mother and rote of all vyces." The " great and excessive 
 nombres " of idle rogues and vagabonds were a crying evil. To 
 this class belonged the men who committed " contynuaU theftes, 
 murders, and other haynous offences, which displeased God, 
 damaged the King's subjects, and disturbed the common weal of 
 the realm." Apart from the committal of serious crime, the mass 
 of idle vagrants was in country districts a nuisance and a danger. 
 The kidnapping of children was not uncommon. Housewives were 
 robbed of their linen, and their pots and pans, or terrified by threats 
 of violence into parting with their money. Horses were stolen 
 from their paddocks, or, stiU more easily, from the open-field balks 
 on which they were tethered ; pigs were taken from their styes, 
 chickens and eggs from the henroosts. Men and women, as they 
 returned from markets, were waylaid by sturdy ruffians. Shops, 
 booths, and stalls were pilfered of their contents. Tippling-houses 
 were converted into receivers' dens for stolen goods. The com- 
 parative leniency of the laws of Henry VII. had failed ; therefore 
 the evil must be stamped out with a severity which was not only 
 unsentimental but ferocious. 
 
 Here the interesting point is whether the ranks of idle rogues 
 
 > See Appendix 11., The Poor Lama, 1601-1834. 
 
 » 1530-1 (22 Henry Vm. o. 12) supplemented in 1636 by 27 Heniy VHI. 
 c. 26. 
 
UNEMPLOYED LABOUR 76 
 
 were to any large extent swollen by agriculturists, driven to want 
 and desperation by the loss of their holdings. The sturdy beggars, 
 against whom Richard II. had legislated, had not the excuse of 
 want of employment. They consisted, partly of disbanded soldiers 
 who had so long followed the trade of war that they knew no 
 other ; partly of men who had suffered that general moral deteriora- 
 tion which often resulted from great catastrophes like the successive 
 visitations of the " Black Death." In the fifteenth century, the 
 close of the French war and of the Wars of the Roses again recruited 
 the ranks of idle poverty and crime. To them were added, at a 
 later date, the disbanded retinues of great nobles, " the great 
 flock or train," to quote More's Utopia, " of idle and loitering 
 serving-men, which never learned any craft whereby to get their 
 living." Finally, the suppression of the monasteries displaced and 
 threw upon the world a large number of dependents, many of whom, 
 from inclination or necessity, joined the army of sturdy beggars. 
 Disbanded soldiers, discharged serving-men, and dismissed depend- 
 ents of monastic institutions account for a formidable total of 
 unemployed labour, without the addition of clothiers out of work 
 or displaced agriculturists. But the evidence of More's Utopia 
 cannot be ignored. The passage is famihar ^ in which he speaks 
 of the husbandmen " thrust owte of their owne " by enclosures ; 
 compelled to " trudge out of their knouen and accustomed howses " ; 
 driven to a forced sale of their " housholde stuffe " and " con- 
 strayned to sell it for a thyng of nought." " And when they have, 
 wanderynge about, sone spent that, what can they els do but 
 Steele, and then justelye, God wote, be hanged, or els go about a 
 beggyng ? And yet then also they be cast in prison as vagaboundes, 
 because they go about and worke not ; whom no man will set a 
 worke, though they never so willingly ofEer them selfes therto." 
 More's eloquent appeal may have produced effect. In the year 
 after the publication of Utopia, the first and most important Com- 
 mission was issued (1517-19) to enquire into the progress and results 
 of enclosures in the twenty-four counties principally affected. The 
 Returns of the Commissioners in Chancery are admittedly imperfect. 
 But they justify the conclusion* that More's picture, though true 
 
 * Utopia, bk. i., ed- Lupton, pp. 53-4. 
 
 ' Hypothetical tables based on these retvims have been constructed by 
 Mr. Gay, showing that the total number of persons displaced by enclosures 
 during the period 1485-1617 did not much exceed 6931. See Johnson's 
 IHawppearanee of the SmaU LancUntmer, p. 58. 
 
76 FARMING FOR PROFIT 
 
 in particular instances, is as a general description of rural conditions 
 too highly coloured. Dispossessed agriculturists undoubtedly con- 
 tributed some proportion of the class which the Government grouped 
 under the heading of idle rogues. Contemporary writers imply 
 that the proportion was large : modem research, based on con- 
 temporary enquiries and returns, suggests that it was relatively 
 small. The evidence seems insufficient for a decision. In coping 
 with a real evil, the Government attempted no classification. The 
 innocent suffered with the guilty, and men and women, whether 
 many or few, who had lost their means of livelihood and were 
 willing to work, were the victims of severe punishment designed 
 for the class of professional vagabonds. 
 
 Something is known of the degrees, practices, and jargon of the 
 Elizabethan fraternity of vagabonds. Awdelay and Harman^ 
 describe the " Abraham man," or " poor Tom," bare-legged and 
 bare-armed, pretending madness; the "Upright man" with his staff, 
 and the " Ruffler " with his weapon ; the " Fraters," Pedlars, and 
 Tinkards ; the " priggars of Frauncers," or horse-stealers, in their 
 leather jerkins ; the " Counteriet Cranke," feigning the falling sick- 
 ness, with a piece of white soap in his mouth which made him foam 
 like a boar : the " Palliards," with their patched cloaks, and self- 
 infficted sores or wounds ; and many others of the twenty-three 
 varieties, male and female, of the professional beggar. But even 
 Harman seldom enquired into their previous life. Some, like the 
 " Ruffler," had either " serued in the warres or bene a seruinge 
 man " ; others, like the " Uprights," have been " serueing men, 
 artificers, and laboryng men traded up to husbandry." The 
 " wild Roge " was a " begger by enheritance — his Grandfather was 
 a begger, his father was one, and he must nedes be one by good 
 reason." Few allusions can be gleaned from Shakespeare's writings 
 to the agricultural changes which were taking place around him. 
 But when we pass from the movement itself to some of the results 
 which it helped to produce, his references are many and clear. The 
 mass of " vagrom men " was a real social danger which exercised 
 the wits of wiser men than Dogberry.* 
 
 ' The Fraternity of Vacabondea, by John Awdeley (1561) and A Caveat or 
 Warening for Commen Ctirsetera, by Thomas Harmon (1667-8). 
 
 'Many of the types of beggars appear in Shakespeare's pages. There is 
 Harman's " BufiBer," " the worthiest of this unruly rablement " : 
 " . . . fit to bandy with thy lawleu Bons 
 To raffle in the commonwealth of Borne." 
 
 {Tit. Andr. Act i. So. 1, U. 312-3.) 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S " VAGROM MEN " 77 
 
 There is the "pedlar," the aristocracy of the profession, a clever plausible 
 rascal like Autolyous. " The droncken tyncker " is represented by Christopher 
 Sly — " by birth a pedlar ... by present profession a tinker " — drunk on 
 the heath, and in debt for ale to Marian Hacket {Tam. Sh. Ind. ii. 11. 19-22). 
 There is the " prygger " or " prygman," who " haunts wakes, fairs, and 
 bear-baitings " (WitU. TcOe, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 109). There is Awdeley's " chop- 
 logyke," who gives " XX w6rdes for one," to whom Capulet likens his daughter 
 Juliet {Rom. and JtU. Act iii. Sc. 6, 1. 160). There is Harman's " Bogue," 
 or " Wild Rogue," in the " rogue forlorn," who sheires the hovel and the straw 
 with King Lear and the swine {Lear, Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 39). Edgar, disguised 
 as a madman and calling himself ' poor Tom " {Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4, L 57), is 
 Awdeley's " Abraham man," who " nameth himselfe ' poore Tom.'. . Whipped 
 from tithing to tithing," he had only received the punishment to which an 
 Elizabethan statute (39 Eliz. c. 4) sentenced " all fencers, bearwards, common 
 players, and minstrels ; all jugglers, tinkers and petty chapmen," and other 
 vagrants who were adjudged to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 Patemcd despotism : restoTatioii of the purity of the coinage ; a definite 
 commeTcial policy : revival of the wool txade : new era of prosperity 
 among landed gentry and occupiers of land : a time of adversity for small 
 landowners and wage-earning labourers : Statute of Apprentices ; hiring 
 fairs ; growth of agricultural literature : Fitzherbert and Tusser : their 
 picture of Tudor farming : defects of the open-field system : experience of 
 the value of enclosures ; improvement in farming : Bamaby Googe ; 
 Sir Hugh Flat : progress in the art of gardening. 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth marks a definite stage in English history. 
 The mediaeval organisation of society, together vrith its trade 
 guilds and manorial system of farming, had broken down. Out of 
 the confusion order might be evolved by a paternal despotism. 
 The Queen's advisers, with strong practical sagacity, set themselves 
 to the task. They sate loosely to theories and rode no principles 
 to death. But so firmly did they lay their foundations, that parts 
 of their structure lasted until the nineteenth century. National con- 
 trol displaced local control. The central power gathered strength: it 
 directed the economic interests of the nation ; it regulated industrial 
 relations ; through its legislation and administration it fostered the 
 development of national resources. 
 
 The restoration of the standard purity and weight of the coinage 
 was resolutely taken in hand. Its debasement had been the cause 
 of much of the economic distress in previous reigns ; credit was 
 ruined, and the treasury bankrupt. The debased, sweated, and 
 clipped silver coinage was called in, and new coins were issued. As 
 silver flowed into the country from the New World, the amount of 
 money in circulation increased. More capital was available in a 
 handy form, and, when legitimate interest ceased to be confused 
 with usury, more people could borrow it on reasonable terms. The 
 way was thus paved for a new era of commercial prosperity. 
 
 In mediaeval times the whole external trade of the country had 
 
DEFINITE COMMERCIAL POLICY 79 
 
 been in the hands of foreigners. Elizabeth followed and developed 
 the commercial policy of England, which first assumed a dehberate 
 continuous shape under Henry Vii. Foreign traders were dis- 
 couraged, and English merchants favoured. The Hanseatic League 
 lost the last of its privileges ; the Venetian fleet came to England 
 less and less frequently, and at last ceased altogether to fly its 
 flag in the Channel. The import of manufactured goods was 
 checked. The export of raw material and of English sheep was 
 narrowly restricted, though long wool, as the staple of a great trade, 
 was still sent abroad freely. The Government realised to the full 
 all the abuses of patents and monopoUes ; but they did not hesitate 
 to grant both privileges in order to stimulate native enterprise. 
 Companies were formed with exclusive rights of trading in par- 
 ticular countries. The oldest and most powerful of these Companies, 
 the Merchant Adventurers, obtained a royal charter in 1564. The 
 Muscovite, Levant or Turkey, Eastland or Baltic, and Guinea or 
 African Companies were formed to push English trade in foreign 
 parts. In 1600 the East India Company was chartered. The 
 mercantile marine was encouraged by fishery laws, which gave 
 English fishermen a monopoly in the sale of fish. Men who argued 
 that abstinence from meat at certain seasons was good for the 
 soul's health risked the stake or the rack ; but, for the sake of 
 multiplying seamen, the Government did not hesitate to ordain 
 fast-days on which only fish was to be eaten.*^ To foster the home 
 manufacture of cloth, it was made a penal offence for any person 
 over the age of six not to wear on Sundays and holy days a cap 
 made of English cloth. Stimulated by such methods, trade throve 
 apace, and English goods were carried in English-built ships, owned 
 by Englishmen, and manned by English seamen. While foreign 
 merchants were discouraged, foreign craftsmen, especially religious 
 refugees from France or Flanders, were welcomed as settlers, 
 bringing with them their skill in manufacturing paper, lace, silk, 
 parchments, light woollens, hosiery, fustians, satins, thread, needles, 
 and in other arts and industries. 
 The English wool trade was restored to more than its former 
 
 ^ The rule of eating fish twice a week was continued from Catholic times ; 
 but a, third day was added by Elizabeth from motives of " civile policy." 
 " Accounting the Lent Season, and all fasting dales in the yeare, together 
 with Wednesday and Friday and Saturday, you shall see that the one halfe 
 of the yeare is ordeined to eate fish in " (Cogan, Haven of HeUhe, ed. 1612, 
 p. 138). 
 
80 THE REK3N OF ELIZABETH 
 
 prosperity. On it had long depended the commercial prosperity 
 of the comitry. John Cole, " the rich clothier of Reading " at the 
 end of the thirteenth century, was as famous as his fellow-craftsman, 
 John Winchcomb, the warlike " Jack of Newbury," became in the 
 days of Henry VUI. Wool was the chief source of the wealth of 
 traders and of the revenues of the Crown. It controlled the foreign 
 policy of England, supplied the sinews of our wars, built and 
 adorned our churches and private houses. The foreign trade con- 
 sisted partly in raw material, partly in semi-manufactured exports 
 such as worsted yams, partly in wholly manufactured broad-cloth. 
 As the manufacture of worsted and cloth goods developed in this 
 country, the demand and consumption rapidly increased at home. 
 According to the purpose for which it was to be used, wool was 
 divided into long and short. In England, long wool was employed 
 mainly for worsted fabrics, but also to give strength and firmness 
 to cloth. Abroad, it was eagerly bought in its raw state for both 
 purposes. In long wool, or combing-wool, England had pracr 
 tically a monopoly of the markets, and to it the export trade of 
 raw material was almost exclusively confined. Short wool, on the 
 other hand, was used for broad-cloth. In its raw state it had a 
 formidable rival abroad in the fleeces of the Spanish merino. Only 
 in the manufactured state did it compete with Flemish and French 
 fabrics on the Continent, and often found itself unable, owing to 
 the excellence of merino wool and the skill of foreign weavers, to 
 maintain its hold on the home market. Wool-staplers were the 
 middlemen. They bought the wool from the breeder, sorted it 
 according to its quaJity, and sold it to the manufacturer. Dyer,^ 
 two centuries later, describes their work : 
 
 " Nimbly, \Tith habitual speed. 
 They Bever lock from lock, and long and short. 
 And soft, and rigid, pUe in several heaps. 
 This the dusk hatter asks ; another shines. 
 Tempting the clothier ; that the hosier seeks ; 
 The long bright lock is apt for aiiy stufEs : 
 
 If any wool, peculiar to our isle. 
 
 Is given by nature, 'tis the comber's lock. 
 
 The soft, the snow-white, and the long-grown flake." 
 
 In the long-wooled class Cotswold wool held the supremacy, with 
 Cirencester as its centre, though the " lustres " of lincolnshice 
 always commanded their price. Among short-wools, Byeland had 
 
 1 The Fleece (1767), bk. u ; U. 83-88 and 446-47. 
 
CHANGE m THE QUALITY OF WOOL 81 
 
 the pre-eminence, with Leominster as the centre of its trade. 
 " Lemster ore " was the equivalent of the " golden fleece " of the 
 ancients, and poets compared the wool for its fineness to the 
 web of the silk- worm, and for its softness to the cheek of a 
 maiden. 
 
 During the Tudor period, a change was passing over the wool 
 trade, which may have influenced the labour troubles of the period 
 as weU as the policy of land-holders. As enclosiu-es multipUed, 
 sheep were better fed, and the fleece increased in weight and length, 
 though it lost something of the fineness of its quality. Li other 
 words, the wool was less adapted for the manufacture of broad- 
 cloth. The old pastures were also wearing out. During long and 
 cold winters, if the sheep is half-starved, the fleece may retain its 
 fineness, but it loses in strength. There also was a deterioration 
 in the quahty of short wool. How far these considerations may 
 have influenced pasture-farming is necessarily uncertain. But it 
 is at least a coincidence that, in spite of the increase in the number 
 of sheep, there was, in the early years of the Tudor period, con- 
 siderable distress in the clothing trade. As the reign of Elizabeth 
 advanced, the great development of home manufactures provided 
 a remedy. The newly established Merchant Companies opened up 
 fresh markets abroad for English cloth. At the same time Prance 
 and the Low Countries, distracted by civil or religious wars, ceased 
 for the moment to be our rivals in the trade. English broad- 
 cloths were exported abroad in increasing quantities. The suspen- 
 sion of continental manufactures checked the exportation of Enghsh 
 long wool. But again the religious troubles of the Continent 
 relieved the situation. Foreign refugees settled in England, bring- 
 ing with them secrets in the manufacture of worsted, light woollen 
 stnfis, and hosiery, for all of which English wool was specially 
 adapted. 
 
 Thus England was once more growing prosperous, and farming 
 shared in the general prosperity. As the reign advanced, agri- 
 cultural produce rose rapidly in price. The rise no longer depended 
 on those fluctuations in the purity of the coinage, which had been 
 so frequent that no man knew the real value of the coin in which he 
 was paid. For a time the influx of silver had cheapened the precious 
 metals, diminished their purchasing power, and so created deamess. 
 But the great expansion of trade gradually absorbed the new 
 supply of silver. The later rise in agricultural prices was due to 
 
 F 
 
82 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 the relative scarcity of produce, which was caused by the increased 
 
 consumption consequent on revived prosperity, by a higher standard 
 
 of living, and by a growing population. The necessary spur of 
 
 profit was thus appUed to farming energies. Leaseholders for a 
 
 long term or for lives, and copyholders at fixed quit-rents had their 
 
 golden opportunity, and many of them used it to become wealthy. 
 
 Of the general prosperity of the landowning and land-renting 
 
 portion of the rural community, there is sufficient evidence. Every 
 
 man, says Harrison,^ turned builder, " pulled downe the old house 
 
 and set up a new after his owne devise." In ten years more oak 
 
 was used for building than had been used in the previous hundred. 
 
 Country manor-houses were buUt not of timber, but of brick or 
 
 stone, and they were furnished with " great provision of tapistrie, 
 
 Turkie work, pewter, brasse, fine linen and . . . costUe cupbords 
 
 of plate." Ordinary diet had become less simple. " White-meats," 
 
 — ^milk, butter, eggs, and cheese, — ^were despised by the wealthy, who 
 
 preferred butcher 's-meat, fish, and a " diversitie of wild and tame 
 
 foules." The usual fare of the country gentleman was abundant, 
 
 if not profuse. The dinner which Justice Shallow ordered for 
 
 Falstafi might be quoted as an illustration. But more direct 
 
 evidence may be produced. Harrison says that the everyday 
 
 dinner of a coimtry gentleman was " foure, five, or six dishes, when 
 
 they have but smaU resort." Gervase Markham in his English 
 
 Housewife gives directions for a " great feast," and for " a more 
 
 humble feast, or an ordinary proportion which any good man may 
 
 keep in his family, for the entertainment of his true and worthy 
 
 friend." The " humble feast " includes " sixteen dishes of meat 
 
 that are of substance and not emptie, or for shew." To these 
 
 " sixteen full dishes," he adds " sallets, fricases, quelque choses, and 
 
 devised paste, as many dishes more, which make the full service 
 
 no lesse then two-and-thirtie dishes." In dress, also, the country 
 
 gentry were growing more expensive, imitating the " diversities 
 
 of jagges and changes of colours " of the Frenchman. Already, too, 
 
 as Bishop Hall has described in his Satires, they were in the habit 
 
 of deserting their country-houses for the gaiety of towns, and the 
 
 " unthankful swallow " " built her circled nest " in 
 
 " The towered chimnies which shovild be 
 The windpipes of good hospitalitie." 
 
 Of the yeomen, who included not only farming owners, but 
 
 ^ Harrison, Detcription of England (1577), bk. ii. oc. vi. zii. zxii. 
 
PROSPERITY OF YEOMEN 83 
 
 lessees for lives and copyholders, Harrison says that they " com- 
 monlie live wealthilie, keepe good houses, and travell to get riches." ^ 
 Their houses were furnished Mdth " costlie furniture," and they had 
 " learned also to garnish their cupbords with plate, their joined 
 beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets 
 and fire naperie." Though rents had risen and were still rising, 
 " yet will the farmer thinke his gaines verie small toward the end 
 of his terme if he have not six or seven yeares rent lieing by him, 
 therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire garnish of pewter 
 on his cupbord, three or foure featherbeds, so manie coverlids and 
 carpets of tapistrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen of 
 spoones to furnish up the sute." Old men noted these changes in 
 luxurious habits — " the multitude of chitnnies lateUe erected," " the 
 great amendment of lodging," and " the exchange of vessel as of 
 treene platters into pewter and wodden spoones into silver or tin." 
 Writing of the Cheshire yeomen in 1621, William Webb says : ^ 
 " In building and furniture of their houses, till of late years, they 
 used the old manner of the Saxons ; for they had their fire in the 
 midst of the house against a hob of clay, and their oxen also under 
 the same roof ; but within these forty years it is altogether altered, 
 so that they have built chimnies, and furnished other parts of their 
 houses accordingly. . . . Touching their housekeeping it is 
 bountiful and comparable with any shire in the realm. And that 
 is to be seen at their weddings and burials, but chiefly at their 
 wakes, which they yearly hold ... for this is to be understood 
 that they lay out seldom any money for any provision but have 
 it of their own, as beef, mutton, veal, pork, capons, hens, wild fowl, 
 and fish. They bake their own bread and brew their own drink. 
 To conclude, I know divers men, who are but farmers, that in their 
 housekeeping may compare with a lord or a baron in some countries 
 beyond the seas. Yea, although I named a higher degree, I were 
 able to justify it." In the Isle of Wight, Sir John Oglander ' com- 
 pares the state of the country at the close of Elizabeth's reign with 
 that at the outbreak of the Civil War. At the former period he 
 says that " Money wase as plentiful in yeomens purses as nowe 
 in ye beste of ye genterye, and all ye genterye full of monyes and 
 owt of debt." 
 
 * Description, bk. ii. ch. v. 
 
 > Quoted in King's Vale Royal (1778), vol. i. pp. 30, 31. 
 
 • Oglander Uemovra (1596-1648), p. 66. 
 
84 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 The small copyholder's house is described by Bishop Hall as 
 being : 
 
 " Of one bay's breadth, Ood wot, a eilly cote 
 Whose thatched spars are furred with sluttish soote 
 A whole inch thick, shining like blackmoor's brows 
 Through smoke that downe the headlesse barrel blows, 
 At his bed's feete feeden his stalled teame. 
 His swine beneath, his pullen o'er the beame." 
 
 The outside walls were made of timber uprights and cross-beams, 
 forming raftered panels which were thickly daubed with clay. 
 But the fare which the small copyholder enjoyed was at least as 
 plentiful as that of landless labourers in modem times. In one of 
 the Elizabethan pastoral poems a noble huntsman finds shelter 
 under a shepherd's roof. The food, even if something is allowed 
 for Arcadian licence, was good, though, in the language of the day, 
 it consisted mainly of " white meat." The guest was supplied 
 with the best his host could provide : 
 
 " Browne bread, whig, bacon, curds, and milke. 
 Were set him on the borde." 
 
 Fresh butcher's meat was rarely seen on the table. Of the " Martyl- 
 mas beef," hung from the rafters and smoked, Andrew Borde ^ 
 thought httle. If, he says, a man have a piece hanging by his side 
 and another in his belly, the piece which hangs by his side does 
 him more good, especially if it is rainy weather. Bacon, souse, and 
 brawn were the peasant's meat. " Potage," Borde elsewhere writes, 
 " is not so moch used in all Crystendom as it is used in England." 
 It was part of the staple diet of the peasant, whether made of the 
 liquor in which meat had been boiled, thickened with oatmeal, and 
 flavoured with chopped herbs and salt, or made from beans or 
 pease. Oatmeal porridge, and " fyrmente," made of millr and 
 wheat, were largely used. His bread was generally made of wheat 
 and rye, often mixed, as Best states,' with pease — a peck of pease 
 to a bushel of rye, or two pecks of pease to the same quantity of 
 rye and wheat. Even " horse-bread," as Borde calls it,^ made of 
 pease and beans, was better than the mixture of acorns which 
 Harrison says * was eaten in times of dearth. Yet the husbandman 
 had his feastings, such as "bridales, purifications of women and 
 such od meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is 
 consimied and spent." 
 
 1 Andrew Borde's Dyetary (1642), oh. xvi. ' Farming Book, p. 104. 
 » Borde's Dyetary, ch. si. • Detcription, ch. vi. 
 
NEW BUYERS OF LAND 85 
 
 The prosperity of the rural community was not imiversal. For 
 many of the smaller gentiy, and for day-labourers for hire, times 
 were hard. Landowners, whose income was more or less stationary, 
 suffered from the rise in prices, accompanied, as it was, by a higher 
 standard of luxury. When leases fell in, or Uves were renewed, or 
 copyholders were admitted, rents might be increased or fines 
 enhanced. But in an extravagant age, when country gentlemen 
 b^an to be attracted to London, such opportunities, if the tenants 
 belonged to a healthy stock, might come too rarely or too late. 
 Many owners were compelled to sell their estates. Land was often 
 in the market. Thus two opposing tendencies characterised the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The division of church lands 
 among grantees who already owned estates strengthened the landed 
 aristocracy, while continual sales democratised the ownership of 
 land. It is said that only 330 families can trace their titles to land * 
 beyond the dissolution of the monasteries. Li the two centiuies 
 that followed, few of the gentry retained their hold on their estates, 
 unless they were enriched by wealthy marriages, by trade, or by 
 the practice of the law. The buyers generally belonged to the 
 rising middle classes. Harrison, in his Description of England} 
 says that yeomen, " for the most part farmers to gentlemen," by 
 attention to their business " do come to great welth in somuch that 
 manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentle- 
 men." Fynes Moiyson, in his Itinerary * (1617) notes that the Eng- 
 lish " doe . . daily sell their patrimonies, and the buyers (except- 
 ing Lawyers) are for the most part Citizens and vulgar Men." Sir 
 Simon Degge* (1669), a learned lawyer, declares that in Stafford- 
 shire, during the past sixty years, half the land had passed into 
 the possession of new men. He attributes this change of ownership, 
 partly to divine punishment for the sacrilege of those who were 
 grantees of ecclesiastical property, partly to the extravagance of 
 the country gentry who now took pleasure in spending their estates 
 in London. He makes these comments on Erdeswick's Survey 
 of Staffordshire, drawn up between 1693 and 1603, and goes on to 
 say that there were then in the county only " three citizen owners " 
 
 ' Bk. ii. ch. V. The DeacripHon vas published in 1677. The same 
 passage occurs in Sir Thomas Smith's De RepvbUca Anglorum, bk. i. ch. xsiii. 
 published in 1583. 
 
 ■ Part m. bk. iii. ch. iii. 
 
 * Degge's Letter is printed as a supplement to Eideswick's Survey of 
 Staffordshire in the edition of 1717. 
 
86 THE REIGN OP ELIZABETH 
 
 of land, and that now, in 1669, there were three Barons, four 
 Baronets, and twenty calling themselves Esquires who had bought 
 estates with money made in trade. Similar is the evidence of the 
 compiler of Angliae Notitia ^ (1669). " The English," he says, 
 " especially the Oentry are so much given to Prodigality and Sloth- 
 fulness that Estates are oftner spent and sold than in any other 
 Countrey . . . whereby it comes to passe that Cooks, Vintners, 
 Innkeepers, and such mean Fellows, enrich themselves and begger 
 and insult over the Gentry . . . not only those but Taylors, Dancing 
 Masters and such Trifling Fellows arrive to that Riches and Pride, 
 as to ride in their Coaches, keep their Summer Houses, to be served 
 in Plate, etc. an insolence insupportable in other well-govem'd 
 Nations." 
 
 Another class, that of labourers, suffered from the deamess of 
 agricultural produce, because their wages were fixed by law, and 
 only by slow degrees followed the upward tendency of prices. In 
 some respects the worst evils of the period 1485-1558 were passing 
 away, or were modified by the expansion of trade. Enclosures 
 still continued. Acts of Parliament* were still passed against the 
 decaying of towns and against the substitution of pasture for 
 tillage, and one of the most vehement of protests against enclosures, 
 was made by Francis Trigge,' in 1604. But land was now more 
 frequently enclosed for arable farming, and there was consequently 
 less displacement of labour. The great extension of gardens 
 attached to country houses provided new occupations. Industries 
 like spinning, weaving, and rope-making, which were previously 
 confined to particular towns by the craft-organisations of guilds, 
 spread into rural districts, and employed villagers in supplying not 
 merely their domestic wants but the needs of manufacturers. 
 Agriculturally, a change was taking place in the labourer's condi- 
 tion. For the cultivation of the soil, farmers, except in the North 
 and East, looked less to servants in husbandry and more to the day- 
 labourers, whose wages assumed a new importance in the assess- 
 ments of the Justices of the Peace. As the prices of agricultural 
 produce rose, and as, here and there, the improvement of roads 
 brought new markets within the reach of farmers, it was cheaper 
 
 ^In the 1692 edition of AngUeie Notitia the words "Prodigality, Sports, 
 and Pastimes " are substituted for " Prodigality and Slothfulness." 
 * 1662-3, 6 Eliz. c. 2 ; 1697-8, 39 Eliz. cc. 1 and 2 ; 1601, 43 Eliz. c. 9. 
 ' The Humble Petition of Two Siatera : the Chwreh and Oormtum-wecMi. 
 
LABOURERS AKD THEIR WAGES 87 
 
 to pay wages to hired labourers than to board agricoltural servants, 
 especially if, as Tusser says, they required roast meat on Sundays 
 and Thursdays. Free labour, sometimes, but not invariably, 
 stUl associated with the occupation of land, was becoming in the 
 southern and midland counties the chief agent in cultivating the 
 soil. Where enclosures were fewest, the largest number of labourers 
 supplemented their wages by the profits of their land, their rights 
 of common, and their goose-runs. Where enclosures were most 
 extensive, those labourers were most numerous who were dependent 
 only on their labour-power. Apparently there was difficulty in 
 lodging this increasing class of landless labourers, and an attempt 
 was made to use existing cottages as tenement houses. The Govern- 
 ment endeavoured to check these tendencies by legislation.^ Not 
 more than one family was allowed to occupy each cottage, and to 
 every cottage four acres of land were to be attached. 
 
 But the most important attempt to regulate the labour-market 
 was the Statute of Apprentices (1563).^ This industrial code 
 " touching divers orders for artificers, labourers, servants of 
 husbandry, and apprentices " deals with labour in the towns as 
 weU as in the country. It was framed, partly as a consolidating 
 Act, partly because, as the Preamble states, the allowances 
 limited in previous legislation had, owing to the advance in 
 prices, become too small. It was passed in the hope that its 
 administration would " banish idleness, advance husbandry, and 
 yield unto the hired person both in the time of scarcity and in 
 the time of plenty a convenient proportion of wages." It pro- 
 ceeds on the old lines that men could be compelled to work. But 
 it contemplates a minimum wage at the rates current in the 
 district, establishes a working day for summer and winter, and 
 endeavours to provide for technical instruction by a system of 
 apprenticeship. Any person between the age of twelve and sixty, 
 not excepted by the Statute, could be compelled to labour in 
 husbandry. AU engagements, except those for piecework, were to 
 be for one year. Masters unduly dismissing servants were fined. 
 Servants unduly leaving masters were imprisoned. No servant 
 could leave the locaUty where he was last employed without a 
 certificate of lawful departure. Hours of labour were twelve hours 
 in the summer and during daylight in winter. Wages were to be 
 annually fixed by the Justices of the Peace, after considering the 
 < 1589, 31 Eliz. c. 7. • 1662-3, 6 Eliz. c. i. 
 
88 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 circumstances, in consultation with " such grave and discreet 
 persons as they shall think meet." No higher wages than those 
 settled under the assessment were to be given, or received, under 
 severe penalties. At harvest time, artificers and persons " meet 
 to labour " might be compelled to serve at the mowing or " iTiniTig " 
 of hay and com. Persons over twelve and under eighteen might 
 be taken as apprentices in husbandry and compelled to serve till 
 the age of twenty-one. By agreement the age might be extended 
 to twenty-four. 
 
 Under the provisions of this Statute agricultural labourers and 
 servants were engaged annually. Shortly before Martinmas, the 
 chief constable of the division sent out notices that he would sit 
 at a certain town or village on a given day, and required the petty 
 constables to attend with lists of the masters and servants in their 
 districts. At the appointed place and time the chief constable met 
 his subordinates and the masters : the servants also assembled, all 
 " cladde," as Henry Best describes them,^ " in their best apparrell," 
 in the market square, the churchyard, or some other public place. 
 The chief constable took the lists, called each master in turn accord- 
 ing to the entries, and asked him whether he was willing to set such 
 and such a servant at liberty. If the master replied in the negative, 
 the constable stated what were the wages fixed by the Justices, 
 received a penny fee from the master, and bound the servant for a 
 second term of a year. If the answer was in the affirmative, the 
 constable received from the servant a fee of twopence, and gave him 
 his certificate of lawful departure. Meanwhile masters who wished 
 to hire labourers, whether men or women, walked about among the 
 assembled crowd in order to choose Ukely-looking servants. When 
 a master had made his choice, his first enquiry was whether the man 
 was at liberty. If the servant had his ticket, the master took him 
 aside, and asked where he was bom, where he was last employed, 
 and what he could do. Best once heard the answer : 
 
 " I can sowe, 
 I can mowe, 
 And I can stacke, 
 And I can doe 
 My master too. 
 When my master tumes his backe." 
 
 If the last employer was present at the sitting, he was sought out, 
 
 * Bural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641, being the Farming and account Book» 
 of Henry Best (Surtees Society, vol. zxxiii. 1867), pp. 132-6. 
 
BIRTH OF AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE 89 
 
 and asked whether the man-servant was " true and trustie . . . 
 gentle and quiett . . . addicted to company-keepinge or noe," or 
 whether the woman-servant was a good milker, not " of a sluggish 
 and sleepie disposition for dainger of fire." Then followed the 
 bargaining for wages. Sometimes the servant asked for a " gods- 
 penny " on striking the bargain, " or an old suite, a payre of breeches, 
 an olde hatte, or a payre of shoes ; and mayde servants to have an 
 apron, smocke, or both." Sometimes it was a condition to have so 
 many sheep wintered and summered with the master's flock, and to 
 have the twopence which was paid for the certificate refunded 
 before handing over the ticket to the new master. Once hired, 
 the servant could not leave the master, nor the master dismiss the 
 servant, without a quarter's warning. In Yorkshire a servant 
 liked to come to a new place on Tuesday or Thursday. Monday 
 was counted an unlucky day, and the proverb ran : 
 
 " Monday flitte 
 Never sitte." 
 
 Farming annals are comparatively silent as to the conditions in 
 which day-labourers for hire lived in the reign of Elizabeth. But 
 in one respect, as has been said, they undoubtedly shared the 
 general prosperity. Though their wages remained low, and only 
 fitfully rose as the purchasing power of money declined, they were 
 more secure of employment. In the increased demand for labour 
 resulting from improved methods of agriculture lay their best 
 hopes for the future. It is probable that the decay and ultimate 
 dissolution of the monasteries had for the time inflicted a heavy 
 blow on the development of agriculture as an art. To English 
 farming in the early centuries the monks were what capitalist land- 
 lords became in the eighteenth century. They were the most 
 scientific farmers of the day : they had access to the practical 
 learning of the ancients ; their intercourse with their brethren 
 abroad gave them opportunities of benefiting by foreign experience 
 which were denied to their lay contemporaries. Already, however, 
 there were signs that their places as pioneers would be occupied. 
 Throughout Europe agricultural Uterature was commencing, and 
 writers were at work urging upon farmers the improved methods 
 which enclosure revealed to them. In Italy Tarello and the 
 translators of Crescentius, in the Low Countries Heresbach, in France 
 Charles Estienne and Bernard Palissy, in England Fitzherbert and 
 Tusser, wrote upon farming. It was not long before the gentry 
 
90 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 began to pay attention to agriculture. As Michel de I'HSpital 
 solaced his exile with a farm at fitampes, so Sir Richard Weston 
 in the reign of Charles I., and Townshend in that of George 11., 
 occupied their leisure in farming, and in their retirement conferred 
 greater benefits on the weU-being of England than they had ever 
 done by their poUtical activities. 
 
 Up to the sixteenth century Walter of Henley's farming treatise 
 had held the field. Now it was superseded. In 1523 appeared the 
 Boke of Husbandrye, " compyled," as Berthelet says in his edition 
 of 1534, "sometyme by mayster FitzHerbarde, of Charytie and good 
 zele that he bare to the weale of this moost noble realme, whiche he 
 dydde not in his youthe, but after he had exercysed husbandry with 
 greate experyence XL yeres." In the same year was also printed, 
 by the same author, the Boke of Surveyinge and Improvements. 
 The Book of Husbandry is a minutely practical work on farming, 
 written by a man familiar with the Peak of Derbyshire and by a 
 horsebreeder on a large scale who possessed " 60 mares or more." 
 The Book of Surveying is a treatise on the relations of landlord and 
 tenant and on the best methods of developing an estate. Only 
 an experienced farmer could have written the first ; the second 
 required no greater acquaintance with law than might be acquired 
 by a shrewd landowner in the administration of an estate. The 
 authorship of the two books has been claimed for Anthony Fitz- 
 herbert, who was knighted in 1521-2 on becoming a Justice of the 
 Common Pleas, and also for his elder brother John Fitzherbert.^ 
 It is difficult to credit the Judge — ^immersed in judicial and political 
 duties, and absorbed in the composition of legal works — ^with the 
 practical knowledge of farming displayed in the Book of Husbandry. 
 
 1 The dispute as to the authorship of the Books of Husbandry and Surveying 
 is ancient. Professor Skeat {JntrodtuiHon to the Book of Huabandry, English 
 Dialect Society, 1882), and Mr. Rigg {Dictionary of National Biography) 
 champion Sir Anthony : the Bev. Reginald Fitzherbert {EngUah Historical 
 Review, April, 1897), Sir Ernest Clarke, whose knowledge of agricultural 
 bibliography is unrivalled (Transactions of Bibliog. Soe. 1896, p. 160), and 
 Mr. Gay {Quarterly Journal of EcorumUes, 1904) support the elder brother, 
 John. The Catalogue of the British Museum now attributes the authorship 
 of both books to John Fitzherbert. Berthelet, who printed the edition of 
 1634, speaks of the author, in the passage quoted in the text, as though he 
 were dead. This would be true of John Fitzherbert, who died in 1631, but 
 not of Sir Anthony, who hved till 1638. The " XL yeres " experience, from 
 which the author wrote, could not be claimed by Sir Anthony in 1623 ; it 
 might well have belonged to John, who was bis elder brother. It is known 
 that John Fitzherbert was for four years a student at the Inns of Court, 
 where he might have laid the foundation of his legal knowledge. 
 
FITZHERBERT AND TUSSER 91 
 
 It is much less difficult to imagine that John Fitzherbert should 
 combine minute experience of agricultural details mth a sufficient 
 knowledge of law to write the Book of Surveying. At any rate, 
 the Book of Husbandry became, and for more than half a century 
 remained, a standard work on English farming. 
 
 Thirty-four years later appeared Thomas Tusser's Hundreih Good 
 Pointes of Husbandrie (1557). The work was afterwards expanded 
 into Five Hundreih Pointes of Good Husbandrie, united to as many 
 Good Pointes of Huswifery (1673). Like Fitzherbert, Tusser was a 
 champion of enclosures, and his evidence is the more valuable 
 because he was not only an Essex man, a Suffolk and a Norfolk 
 farmer, but began to write when the agitation against enclosures in 
 the eastern counties was at its height. His own life proved the diffi- 
 culty of combining practice with science, or farming with poetry. 
 " He spread his bread," says FuUer, " with all sorts of butter, yet 
 none would ever stick thereon." He was successively " a musician, 
 schoolmaster, serving-man, husbandman, grazier, poet — ^more skilful 
 in all than thriving in his vocation." To the present generation he 
 is Uttle more than a name. But his doggerel poems are a rich 
 storehouse of proverbial wisdom, and of information respecting 
 the rural life, domestic economy, and agricultural practices of ovu: 
 Elizabethan ancestors. His work was repeatedly reprinted. It is 
 also often quoted by subsequent writers, as, for example, by Henry 
 Best in his Farming Book (1641), by Walter BUth in his English 
 Improver Improved (1649), and by Worhdge in the Systema Agri- 
 cvUurae (1668-9). The practical parts of the poem were edited in 
 1710 by David Hillman under the title of Tusser Redivivus, with a 
 conmientary which continually contrasts Elizabethan practices 
 with those of farmers in the reign of Queen Anne. When Lord 
 Molesworth in 1723 proposed the foundation of agricultural schools, 
 he advised that Tusser's " Five hundred points of good husbandry " 
 should be " taught to the boys to read, to copy and get by heart." 
 From the pages of Fitzherbert and Tusser may be gathered a 
 picture of Tudor agriculture at the time when Elizabeth came to 
 the throne. But even in this Uterature, which probably represents 
 the most progressive theory and practice of farming, it is difficult 
 to trace any important change, still less any distinct advance on 
 thirteenth century methods. Here and there, on the contrary, 
 there are signs that fanners had gone backwards instead of forwards. 
 Agricultural implements remaiaed unaltered. Ploughs were still 
 
92 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 the same heavy, cumbrous instruments, though several varieties 
 
 are mentioned as adapted to the difEerent soils of the country. But 
 
 Fitzherbert was famiUar with the same device for regulating the 
 
 depth and breadth of furrows, which was one of the most notable 
 
 improvements in the eighteenth century ploughs. Oxen were still 
 
 preferred to horses for ploughing purposes by both Fitzherbert and 
 
 Tusser. Iron was more used in the construction of ploughs ; both 
 
 share and coulter were more generally of iron, and the latter was 
 
 well steeled. Iron also entered more largely into the building of 
 
 waggons. Instead of the broad wheels made entirely of wood, 
 
 Fitzherbert recommends narrower wheels, boimd with iron, as more 
 
 lasting and lighter in the draught. So long as artificial grasses 
 
 and roots were unknown, the farmer's year necessarily remained 
 
 the same — its calendar of seasonable operations regulated by the 
 
 recurrence of saints' days and festivals, and controlled by a behef 
 
 in planetary influences as unscientific as that of Old Moore or ZadMel. 
 
 Since the Middle Ages, the only addition to agricultural resources 
 
 had been hops, introduced into the eastern coimties from Flanders 
 
 at the end of the fifteenth century. The date 1524, which is usually 
 
 given for their introduction, is too late ; so also is the rhyme, of 
 
 which there are several variations : 
 
 " Hops, reformation, bays, and beer, 
 Came into England all in one year." 
 
 Hops were apparently unknown in 1523 to Fitzherbert in Derby- 
 shire ; but in 1552 they were sufficiently important to be made the 
 subject of special legislation by Edward VI. In Tusser 's day they 
 were extensively cultivated in Suffolk. On enclosed land their 
 cultivation rapidly increased. Harrison (1577) questions whether 
 any better are to be found than those grown in England. 
 Reginald Scot, himself a man of Kent, published his Per/ite 
 PUUforme of a Hoppe Garden in 1574, with minute instructions 
 for the growing, picking, drying and packing of hops. The 
 book was reprinted in 1575, and again in 1576. It was still the 
 standard work in 1651. In Hartlib's Legacie it is called " an 
 excellent Treatise, to the which Uttle or nothing hath been added, 
 though the best part of an hundred years are since past." 
 
 Fitzherbert starts his Book of Hvsbandry with the month of 
 January. But Tusser begins his farmer's year at Michaelmas as 
 the usual date of entry. Both writers note that an open-field farmer 
 entered by custom on his fallows on the preceding Lady-Day, in 
 
CORN CROPS ON TUDOR FARMS 93 
 
 order that he might get or keep them in good heart for his autumn 
 sowing. As the Julian Calendar was still in force, the dates are 
 twelve days earlier than they would be under the present Gregorian 
 Calendar. Even with this difference, few farmers of to-day would 
 accept Tusser's advice to sow oats and barley in January ; they 
 would be more likely to agree with Fitzherbert that the beginning 
 of March is soon enough. All wheat and rye were sown in the 
 autumn, — ^from August onwards, — and the heaviest grain was 
 selected for seed by means of the casting shovel. Neither of the 
 writers speak of spring wheat, possibly because the preparation for 
 it woidd not fit in with the rigid rules of open-field farming ; but 
 both mention other varieties in the three com crops. Fitzherbert 
 thinks that red wheat, sprot barley, and red oats are the best, and 
 peck wheat, here barley, and rough oats the worst varieties. Mixed 
 crops were popular, such as dredge, or barley and oats ; bolymong, 
 or oats, pease, and vetches ; and wheat and rye. As to the mixed 
 sowing of wheat and rye, the authors differ. Probably their 
 respective experiences in Derbyshire and Suffolk diverged. Fitz- 
 herbert advises that wheat and rye should be sown together, as the 
 blend makes the safest crop and the best for the husbandman's 
 household ; but he recommends that white wheat be chosen because 
 it is the quickest to arrive at maturity.-' He was therefore no 
 behever in the slowness of rye to ripen. Tusser, on the other hand, 
 condemns the practice of sowing the two corns together because of 
 the slow maturity of rye as compared with the relative rapidity 
 of wheat. If they are to be blended, he says, let it be done by the 
 miller. The seed was to be covered in as soon as possible. On 
 the time-honoured question whether rooks are greater malefactors 
 than benefactors, — ^whether they prefer grubs and worms to grain, — 
 neither writer has any doubt. Both give their verdict against the 
 bird, in the spirit of the legislation of their day.^ As soon as the 
 com is in, says Fitzherbert, it should be harrowed, or " croues, 
 doues, and other Byrdes wyll eate and beare away the comes." 
 Tusser advises that girls should be armed with slings, and boys 
 with bows, " to scare away pigeon, the rook, and the crow." Both 
 writers urge the preparation of a fine tilth for barley, — ^in rural 
 
 'Heniy Best, writing a century later (1641), preferred "Kentish wheate 
 ... or that which (hereabouts) is called Dodde-reade " {Farming Book, 
 p. 46). 
 
 • E.g. 24 Hen. Vm. o. 10; 8 Eliz. c. 16. 
 
94 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 phrase " as fine as an ant-hill," — and advise that it should be rolled. 
 
 Tusser recommends that wheat should also be roUed, if the land 
 
 is sufficiently dry. For seeding, Fitzherbert adopts the mediaeval 
 
 rule of two bushels of wheat and rye to the acre. All seeds were 
 
 scattered broadcast by the hand from the hopper. Neither writer 
 
 mentions the dibbing of beans, though that useful practice had been 
 
 introduced by thirteenth century farmers. For barley, oats, and 
 
 " cod ware," Fitzherbert recommends a thicker seeding than was 
 
 practised in mediaeval farming. The best yield per acre is obtained 
 
 from moderate or thin sowing. But it has been suggested that 
 
 Elizabethan farmers more often allowed their land to become foul, 
 
 and that crops were more thickly sown in the hope of saving them 
 
 from being smothered. The suggestion is perhaps confirmed by 
 
 the space which Fitzherbert devotes to weeds, and by his careful 
 
 description of the most noxious plants. At harvest, wheat and rye 
 
 were generally cut with the sickle, and barley and oats were mown 
 
 with the scythe. Fitzherbert advises that com ricks should be 
 
 built on scaffolds and not on the ground. In the eighteenth century 
 
 the advice was still given and still imheeded. 
 
 In their treatment of drainage and manure, neither author makes 
 
 any advance on mediaeval practice. To prevent excessive wetness, 
 
 both advise a water-furrow to be drawn across the ridges on the 
 
 lowest part of the land ; but neither describes the shallow drains, 
 
 filled with stones, and covered in with turf, which were familiar to 
 
 farmers in the Middle Ages. Mole-heaps, if carefully spread, are 
 
 not an unmixed evil. But when Tusser champions the mole as a 
 
 useful drainer of wet pastures, it is evident that the science of 
 
 draining was yet unborn. In choice of manure, neither writer 
 
 appears to command the resources of his ancestors. The want of 
 
 fertilising agencies was then, and may even now prove to be, one 
 
 of the obstacles to small holdings. At the present day the small 
 
 cultivator can, if he has money enough, buy chemical manures, and, 
 
 unlike his Elizabethan ancestor, he no longer uses his straw or the 
 
 dung of his cattle as fuel. But when chemical manures were 
 
 unknown, it was imperatively necessary to employ all natural 
 
 fertilisers. Fitzherbert does indeed deplore the disappearance of 
 
 the practice of marling. ^ But Tusser does not mention the value 
 
 'Arthur Standish, writing in 1611, says that straw and dung were used 
 as fuel {The Commons Complaint, p. 2), and Markham {Enrichment of the 
 Weald of Kent) shows the antiquity of the practice of mturling by saying that 
 trees of 200 or 300 years old may be seen in " innumerable " spent marl-pits. 
 
SHEEP ON OPEN-FIELD FARMS 95 
 
 of marl, lime, chaJk, soot, or town refuse, all of which were used in 
 the Middle Ages, and it is doubtful whether mediaeval farmers 
 followed his practice of rotting straw in pits filled with water, or of 
 carting manure on to the land and leaving it in heaps for a month 
 before it was spread or ploughed in. One new practice, and that 
 a miserable one, is recommended. It is suggested that buck-wheat 
 should be sown and ploughed in, in order to enrich the soil. 
 
 Both Tusser and Fitzherbert advise that on open-field land the 
 sheep should be folded from May to early in September. But 
 Fitzherbert believed that folding fostered the scab. Among the 
 practical advantages of enclosures which he urges is the opportunity 
 that they afforded to farmers of dispensing with the common fold, 
 saving the fees to the common shepherd and the cost of hurdles and 
 stakes, and keeping their flocks in better health. June was the 
 month for shearing. Fitzherbert recommends that sheep should 
 be carefully washed before they were shorn, " the which shall be 
 to the owner greate profyte " in the sale of his wool. Probably 
 the modem farmer has found that his unwashed wool at a greater 
 weight but a lower price is worth as much as his washed wool at 
 less weight and a higher price. Fitzherbert considers sheep to be 
 " the most profitable cattle that any man can have." But, until 
 the introduction of turnips, the true value of sheep on arable land 
 could not be realised. Hence the two branches of farming, which 
 are now combined with advantage to both the sheep farmer and 
 the corn-grower, were entirely dissevered. Until clover, artificial 
 grasses, turnips, swedes, mangolds took their place among the 
 ordinary crops for which arable land was cultivated, no farmer 
 experienced the full truth of the saying that the foot of the sheep 
 turns sand into gold. The practice of milking ewes still continued. 
 Fitzherbert condemns it ; but Tusser, though he notices the injuri- 
 ous results, weakens the effect of his warning by promising that 
 five ewes will give as much milk as one cow. Neither Fitzherbert 
 nor Tusser has anything to say on the improvement of breeds of 
 cattle for the special purposes that they serve. The " general 
 utility " animal was still their ideal. Yet the root of the matter is 
 in Fitzherbert, when he says that a man cannot thrive by com 
 unless he have live-stock, and that the man who tries to keep live- 
 stock without com is either " a buyer, a borrower, or a beggar." 
 If once the difficulty of winter keep could be solved, here was the 
 secret of mixed husbandry realised, and the truth of the maxim 
 
96 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 verified that a full buUock yard makes a full stack-yard. On 
 horses and horse-dealing Fitzherbert is fuU of shrewdness. He 
 defines the horse-master, the " corser " and the " horse leche." 
 " And whan these three be mette," he dryly observes, " if yeh adde 
 a poty-carye to make the fourthe, ye myghte have suche foure, 
 that it were harde to truste the best of them." 
 
 The times at which Fitzherbert and Tusser respectively wrote give 
 special interest to their championship of enclosures. As has been 
 already noticed, both wrote when the agitation against the progress 
 of the movement was at its height, and Tusser was familiar with 
 the eastern counties at the moment of Kett's insurrection in Norfolk. 
 As practical farmers both writers insist on the evils of the open- 
 field system ; but it fell within the province of neither to criticise 
 the tyrannical proceedings by which those evils were often remedied. 
 They rather dwell on the superior yield of enclosed lands,i and on 
 the obstacles to successful farming presented by open-fields — the 
 perpetual disputes, the damage to crops, the waste of land by the 
 multitude of drift-ways, the cost of swineherds, cowherds, and 
 shepherds who were employed as human fences to the com and 
 meadows. Incidentally also they reveal many practical difficulties 
 of the open-field farmer in ploughing and draining. During the 
 winter months, he was obhged to bring his hve-stock in sooner, 
 keep them longer, and feed them at greater cost, than his neighbour 
 on enclosed land. For winter keep, when his hay and straw were 
 running out, he had nothing to rely on but " browse " or tree- 
 loppings. In rearing live-stock he was heavily handicapped. 
 Unless he had pasture of his own, he was forced to time his lambs 
 to fall towards the middle of March. Hence the proverb : 
 
 " At St. Luke's day (Oct. 18, Greg. Cal.) 
 Let tup have play." 
 
 Thus he risked losing lambs because the common shepherd had too 
 much on his hands at once ; his lambs lost a month on the meadow 
 before it was put up for hay ; and the owner missed the profits of 
 an early sale at Helenmas (May 21), and had to sell, if he sold 
 at all, at the same time as all other open-field farmers. The same 
 restrictions hampered him in rearing calves. He could not afford 
 to keep the cow and calf in the winter ; therefore he was obliged 
 to time the calf to come after Candlemas. 
 
 These and other disadvantages convinced practical agriculturists 
 
 1 See ch. iii. pp. 65-66. 
 
AGRICULTUEAL ADVANTAGES OF ENCLOSURES 97 
 
 of the inferiority of the open-field system. Experience waa in 
 favour of enclosures. Fitzherbert points to the prosperity of Essex 
 as an example of the advantage of enclosures. The author of the 
 Compendious or Briefe Examination says that " the countries where 
 most enclosures be are most wealthie, as Essex, Kent, Deven- 
 shire." So also Tusser compares " champion " (open) counties, 
 like Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, with " enclosed " counties, like 
 Essex and Suffolk and says that the latter have 
 
 " More plenty of mutton and biefe. 
 
 Come, butter, and cheese of the best. 
 More wealth anywhere, to be briefe. 
 
 More people, more handsome and prest. ..." 
 
 The proverbial expression " Suffolk stiles " seems to point to the 
 early extinction of open-fields. Norden in his Essex Described^ 
 (1594) calls the county the " Englishe Goshen, the fattest of the 
 Lande ; comparable to Palestina, that flowed with milke and 
 hunnye." So " manie and sweete " were the " commodeties " of 
 Essex, that they compensated for the "moste oruell quarteme fever " 
 which he caught among its low-lying lands. Every practical argu- 
 ment that could be pleaded against open-field farms in the days 
 of Henry VLLl. or Elizabeth might be urged against the system 
 with treble force from the end of the eighteenth century onwards, 
 when farming had grown more scientific, when new crops had been 
 introduced, when drainage had been reduced to a science, and when, 
 under the pressure of a rapidly increasing population, farms were 
 becoming factories of bread and meat. 
 
 Enclosures undoubtedly assisted farming progress. Before the 
 end of the reign the effect of the movement, combined with increased 
 facilities of communication, is distinctly visible. Under the spur 
 which individual occupation and better markets gave to enter- 
 prise, " the soil," as Harrison says, " had growne to be more 
 fruitful, and the countryman more painful, more careful, and more 
 skilful for recompense of gain." Increased attention was paid to 
 manuring. In Cornwall, farmers rode many miles for sand and 
 brought it home on horseback ; sea-weed was extensively used in 
 South Wales ; in Sussex, lime was fetched from a distance at heavy 
 expense ; in Hertfordshire, the sweepings of the streets were bought 
 up for use on the land. The yield of com per acre was rising. On 
 the well-tilled and dressed acre, we are told that wheat now averaged 
 
 1 Camden Society (1840), p. 7. 
 G 
 
98 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 twenty bushels, and that barley sometimes rose to thirty-two 
 bushels, and oats and beans to forty bushels. The improvement of 
 pastures is shown in the increased size and weight of Uve-stock. 
 The average dead weight of sheep and cattle in 1500 probably did 
 not exceed 28 lbs. and 320 lbs. respectively. At the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century the dead weight of the oxen and sheep 
 supplied to the Prince of Wales's household was no doubt excep- 
 tional ; but the difference is considerable. " An ox should weigh 
 600 lbs. the four quarters ... a mutton should weigh 46 lbs. or 44 
 lbs." A new incentive to improvement in arable farming and stock- 
 rearing was supplied by the lower price of wool, consequent partly 
 on over-production, partly on deterioration in quality. This 
 deterioration was in some cases the result of enclosures. The wool 
 was sacrificed to the mutton, and the demand for butcher's meat 
 was not yet sufficient to make the sacrifice profitable. When 
 English wool first came into the Flemish market, it was distinguished 
 for its fineness, and sold at a higher rate than its Spanish rival. It 
 was indispensable for the foreign weaver. The best fleeces were 
 those of the Ryeland or Herefordshire sheep, for which Leominster 
 was the principal market. In the days of Skelton, El3^our Bum- 
 mynge, ale-wife of Leatherhead, had no enviable reputation ; but 
 when her customers made a payment in kind, she was a shrewd 
 judge of its value : 
 
 " Some fill their pot full 
 Of good Lemster Wool." 
 
 Drayton's Dowsabel had a " skin as soft as Lemster wool." Rabe- 
 lais makes Panurge cheapen the flock of Ding-dong ; and when the 
 latter descants upon the fineness of their wool, the English translator 
 (Motteux, 1717) compares them to the quality of " Lemynster 
 wool." From the preamble to a statute of the reign of James I. 
 (4 Jac. I. c. 2.) it would seem that Ryeland flocks were cotted all 
 the year. The second price was fetched by Cotswold wool. The 
 sheep that are kept on downs, heaths and commons produce the 
 finest, though not the heaviest, fleeces. It was the experience of 
 Virgil : 
 
 " Si tibi lanicium curae, . . . fuge pabula laeta." 
 
 In the same sense wrote Dyer : 
 
 " On spacious airy downs, and gentle hills, 
 With grass and thyme o'erspread, and clover wild, 
 The faiiest flocks rejoice ! " 
 
BARNABY GOOGE 99 
 
 As the commons and wastes of England began to be extensively 
 enclosed, the quality of the fleece deteriorated. Heavier animals — 
 better suited to fat enclosed pastures, and producing coarser wool — 
 were introduced. English wool lost its pre-eminence abroad ; and, 
 though still commanding high prices, was no longer indispensable for 
 foreign weavers. The loss was to a great extent counterbalanced 
 by increased consumption at home. But, at the time, the decrease 
 in value was at least as influential in checking the conversion of 
 arable land to pasture as were Acts of Parliament. 
 
 Open-field farms were not as yet such obstacles to agricultural 
 progress as they became after the discovery of new resources and 
 new rotations of crops which could only be utilised to fuU advantage 
 on enclosed lands. But already these new sources of wealth were 
 in sight. The great difficulties in the way of mediaeval and Tudor 
 farmers were want of winter keep and lack of means to maintain or 
 restore the fertility of exhausted soils. In the agricultural literature 
 of Elizabeth the remedy for both is dimly suggested. 
 
 In 1577 appeared Foure Bookea of Hvsbandry^ to which Bamaby 
 Googe, a better poet than Tusser, gave his name. The work was a 
 translation of Heresbach, with 16 additional pages by the translator. 
 Googe mentions Fitzherbert or Tusser as writers worthy to be 
 ranked with " Yarro, Columella, and PaUadius of Home " ; advises 
 agriculturists to read " Maister Bicynolde Scot's booke of Hoppe 
 Gardens " ; and quotes an imposing list of " Aucthors and Hus- 
 bandes whose aucthorities and observations are used in this book." 
 By this reference he does not necessarily mean that all the men 
 whose names he mentions had written books on farming, but rather 
 that he had consulted those who were reputed to be most skilful in 
 its practice. In other words, there were already agriculturists, 
 like "Capt. Byngham," "John Somer," "Richard Deeryng." 
 " Henry Denys," or " WiUiam Pratte," whose methods were an 
 object lesson to their less advanced neighbours. Googe's book has 
 been despised because it was " made in Germany." But in this 
 fact Hes its chief value. The farming of the Low Countries was 
 better than the farming of England, and Googe gives English agri- 
 culturists the benefit of foreign experience. He is the first writer 
 to mention a reaping machine—" a lowe kinde of carre with a 
 couple of wheeles and the frunt armed with sharpe syckles, whiche, 
 
 ^ Foure Bookea of Htubandry, collected by M. Conradus Hereabcushius 
 
 Newely Englished and increased by Bamabe Googe Esquire, London, 1677. 
 
100 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 forced by the beaste through the come, did cut down al before it." 
 He iosists on the extreme importance of manure, and the value of 
 marl, chalk, and ashes. But he does not consider that farmers 
 can thrive by manure alone. On the contrary, he thioks that " the 
 best doung for ground is the Maister's foot, and the best provender 
 for the house the Maister's eye." He also gives a caution against 
 the persistent use of chalk, because, ia the end, it " brings the grounde 
 to be Starke nought, whereby the common people have a speache, 
 that grounde enriched with chalke makes a riche father and a 
 b^gerly sonne." He mentions the use of rape in the Principality 
 of Qeves, a valuable suggestion whether for green-manuring, for 
 the oil in its seeds, or for use as fodder for sheep. He commends 
 " Trefoil or Burgundian grass," which he believes to be of Moorish 
 origin and Spanish introduction, for " there can be no better fodder 
 devised for cattell." He says that turnips have been found in the 
 Low Countries to be good for live-stock, and that, if sown at Mid- 
 summer, they win be ready for winter food. In English gardens 
 turnips were already known. They appear under the name of 
 " tnmepez " among " Rotys for a gardyn " in a fifteenth century 
 book of cookery recipes ; Andrew Borde ^ (1542) recommends them 
 " boyled and eaten with fiesshe " ; William Turner, the herbalist, 
 mentions that " the great round rape called a tumepe groweth in 
 very great plenty in all Germany and more about London then 
 in any other place of England " : Tusser classes them among " roots 
 to boil and to butter " ; but Googe, though only as a translator, 
 was the first writer to suggest that field cultivation of turnips 
 which revolutionised English farming. 
 
 Another Elizabethan writer makes the first attempt to combine 
 science with practice. Sir Hugh Plat was an ingenious inventor, 
 and, as Sir Richard Weston calls him, " the most curious man of 
 his time." He devotes the second part of his Jewell House of Art 
 and Nature (1694) to the scientific manuring of arable and pasture 
 land. ManTU« presents itself to his poetic mind as a Goddess with 
 a Cornucopia in her hand. If land, he says, is perpetually cropped, 
 the earth is robbed of her vegetative salt, and ceases to bear. The 
 object, therefore, of the wise husbandman must be to restore this 
 essential element of fertility. His list of manurial substances is 
 long. He recommends not only farm-yard dung, but marl, lime, 
 street refuse, the subsoil of ponds and " watrie bottomes," salt, 
 
 1 Dyetary, oh. xix. 
 
Sm HUGH PLAT 101 
 
 ashes from the boming of stubble, weeds, and bracken ; the hair 
 of beasts, malt dust, soap-ashes, putrified pilchards, garbage of 
 fish, blood offal and the entrails of animals. He warns farmers 
 of the difficulty in discovBring the right proportion of marl to lay 
 on different sorts of soil. He condemns the waste of the richest 
 properties of farm-yard manure, and recommends the use of covers 
 to all pits used for its accumulation. He himself used a bam roof 
 at his farm at St. Albans, which moved up and down on upright 
 supports, so that the muck-heap could be raised, yet always remain 
 under cover. In his Arte of setting of Come (1600) he advocates 
 dibbing as superior to broadcast sowing. He traces the origin 
 of the practice to the accident of a silly wench, who deposited 
 some seeds of wheat in holes intended for carrots. He goes so 
 far as to say that, by dibbing, the average yield of wheat per 
 acre would be raised from 4 quarters to 15 quarters ! 
 
 The growth of an agricultural literature, as well as Googe's list 
 of notable authorities, suggest that landowners were beginning to 
 interest themselves in com and cattle. Probably their taste for 
 farming was encouraged by the fashionable love for horticulture. 
 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries both had declined : in the 
 Tudor age both revived. The garden was the precursor of the 
 home-farm. In the reign of Elizabeth, gardening became one of 
 the pursuits and pleasures of English country life. The art was 
 loved by Bacon ; it was patronised by Burghley and Walsingham ; 
 it gathered round it a rich Uterature ; it claimed the services of 
 explorers and builders of Empire like Sir Walter Baleigh. Tudor 
 architects used pleasure gardens to carry on and support the lines 
 of their main buildings, and even repeated the patterns of their 
 mural decorations in the geometrical " Knots " of their flower 
 borders ; but they banished kitchen gardens out of sight. The 
 cultivation of vegetables made less progress than that of flowers 
 and fruits. This useful side of horticulture, like farming, was as 
 yet comparatively neglected by the Tudor gentry. But an advance 
 was made. The first step was to recover lost ground. In order 
 to flatter Elizabeth, Harrison probably exaggerated the disuse of 
 vegetables before the accession of her father. He over-states his 
 case when he says that garden-produce, which before was treated 
 as fit for hogs and savage beasts, now supplied not only food for 
 the " poore commons " but " daintie dishes at the tables of delicate 
 merchants, gentlemen, and the nobiUtie." It was doubtless true 
 
102 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 that the art of gardening, like that of farming, had declined during 
 the period which preceded Tudor times. Yet in the decadent 
 fifteenth century, rape, carrots, parsnips, turnips, cabbages, leeks, 
 onions, garlic, as well as numerous " Herbes for Potage," and 
 " Herbes for a salade " appeared in a book on gardens,^ or in the 
 recipes of cookery books. On the other hajid, it is said that, in 
 the reign of Henry Vlll., Queen Catherine was provided with salads 
 from Flanders, because none could be furnished at home, and that 
 onions and cabbages, known in the reign of Henry IH. and praised 
 by Piers Plowman, were in the first part of the fifteenth century 
 imported from the Low Cbuntiies. Now, however, in the reign of 
 Henry Vlil. and onwards, gardening, as Fuller says, began to creep 
 out of Holland into England. In Shakespeare's day, it may be 
 remembered that potatoes ^ as yet only " rained from the sky " and 
 that Anne Page would rather 
 
 " be set quick i' the earth. 
 And bowled to death with turnips," 
 
 than marry the wrong man. Sandwich became famous for its 
 carrots, and in the neighbourhood of Fulham, and along the Suffolk 
 coast, gardens were laid out in which vegetables were extensively 
 cultivated. In rich men's gardens potatoes found a place after 
 1585, though for some years to come, they were regarded, and sold, 
 as luxuries. Here then were accumulating new sources of future 
 advance in farming. Yet progress must have been slow. Robert 
 ChUd, writing anonymously on the " Deficiencies " of agriculture 
 in 1651,' says : " Some old men in Surrey, where it (the Art of 
 Gardenivg) flourisheth very much at present, report, That they 
 knew the first Gardinera that came into those parts, to plant Cab- 
 ages, CcXUfiowers, and to sowe Tumepa, Garrets, and Parsnvpa, and 
 to sowe Baith [early] Pease, all of which at that time were great 
 rarities, we having few, or none in England, but what came from 
 Holland and Flaunders." He goes on to say that he could name 
 '' places, both in the North and West of England, where the name 
 of Gardening and Hawing is scarcely knowne, in which places a few 
 Gardiners might have saved the lives of many poor people, who 
 have starved these dear years." 
 
 •■ The Feate of Gardenimge, by Mayster Ion Gardener, printed in Archaeologia, 
 vol. liv., with a glossary by 'iSia. Evelyn Cecil. 
 
 ' Merry Wivea of Windsor, Act. v. So. 6 and Act iii. So. 4. 
 ^Hartlib's i^octe (1661), pp. 11-12. 
 
PROMISE OF PROGRESS 103 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION (1603-1660). 
 
 FARMING UNDER THE FIRST STEWARTS AND THE 
 COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Promise of agricultural progress checked by the Civil War : agricultural 
 writers and their suggestions : Sir Richard Weston on turnips and clover : 
 conservatism of English farmers ; their dislike to book-fanning not un- 
 reasonable : unexhausted improvements discussed ; Walter Blith on 
 drainage : attempts to drain the fens in the eastern counties ; the resist- 
 ance of the femnen : new views on commons : Winstanley's claims : 
 enclosures advocated as a step towards agricultural improvement. 
 
 The beginning of the seventeenth centuiy promised to usher in 
 a new era of agricultural prosperity. During the first four decades 
 of the period prospects steadily brightened. No general improve- 
 ment in farming practices had been possible until a considerable area 
 of land had been enclosed in one or other of the various forms which 
 enclosures might assume. Under the Tudor sovereigns — ^in the 
 midst of much agrarian suffering and discontent — this indispensable 
 work had been begun, and it continued throughout the seventeenth 
 century. Estates were consoUdated ; small farms were thrown 
 together ; open village farms in considerable numbers gave place 
 to compact and separate freeholds or tenancies ; agrarian partner- 
 ships, in which it was no man's interest to be energetic, made way, 
 here and there, for that individual occupation which offered the 
 strongest incentive to enterprise. Thus opportunities were afforded 
 for the introduction of new crops, the application of land to its best 
 use, and the adoption of improved methods. Dairying was extended 
 in the vales of the West and South West ; com and meat found 
 better and dearer markets ; under the spur of increased profits 
 arable farming again prospered, and the conversion of tillage to 
 pasture was arrested. New materials for agricultural wealth were 
 accumulating ; turnips, already grown in English gardens, were 
 
104 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 lecommended for field cultivation ; twenty years later, potatoes 
 were suggested as a farming crop ; the value of clover and other 
 artificial grasses had been recognised, and urged upon English 
 farmers. Methods became less barbarous. An Act of Parliament 
 was passed " agaynst plowynge by the ta,ile," and the custom of 
 " pulling off the wool yearly from living sheep " was declared illegal. 
 Drainage was discussed with a sense and sagacity which were not 
 rivalled till the nineteenth century. Increased care was given to 
 manuring ; new fertilising agencies were suggested ; the merits of 
 Peruvian guano were explained by G. de la Vega at Lisbon in 1602 ; 
 the use of valuable substances, known to our ancestors but discou; 
 tinned, was revived. Attention was paid to the improvement of 
 agricultural implements. Patents were taken out for draining 
 machines (Burrell, 1628) ; for new manures (1636) ; for improved 
 courses of husbandry (Chiver, 1637 and 1640) ; for ploughs (Hamil- 
 ton, 1623 ; Brouncker, 1627 ; Parham, 1634) ; for instruments for 
 mechanical sowing (Ramsey, 1634, and Plattes, 1639). On all sides 
 new energies seemed to be aroused. 
 
 Much of the land had changed hands during the preceding cen- 
 tury, and the infusion of new blood into the ownership of the soil 
 introduced a more enterprising and business-like spiirit into f armiog. 
 The increased wealth of landowners showed itself in the erection of 
 Jacobean mansions ; farmer owners, tenant-farmers for Uves or 
 long terms of years, copyholders at fixed 4uit-rents, made money. 
 Only the agricultiu-al labourer still suffered. His wages rose more 
 slowly than the prices of the necessaries of life ; his hold on the 
 land was relaxing ; his dependence upon his labour-power became 
 more complete. He was more secure of employment ; but in this 
 respect alone was his lot altered for the better. 
 
 The promise of improvement was checked by the outbreak of 
 the Civil War. Excepting those who were directly engaged in the 
 struggle, men seemed to follow their ordinary business and their 
 accustomed pursuits. The story that a crowd of country gentle- 
 men followed the hounds across Marston Moor between the two 
 armies drawn up in hostile array, may not be true ; but it illustrates 
 the temper of a large proportion of the inhabitants. It was the 
 prevailing sense of insecurity, rather than the actual absorption of 
 the whole population in the war, that caused the promise of agri- 
 cultural progress to perish in the bud. In more settled times under 
 the Commonwealth, fanning prospects again brightened. But 
 
POUnCS SUSPEND PROGRESS 105 
 
 practical progress was once more suspended by the social changes 
 and political uncertainties of the last half of the seventeenth century. 
 Agriculture languished, if it did not actually decline. It is a 
 significant fact that between 1640 and 1670 not more than six 
 patents were taken out for agricultural improvements. Country 
 gentlemen ceased to interest themselves in farming pursuits. " Our 
 gentry," notes Pepys, " are grown ignorant in everything of good 
 husbandry." Without their initiative progress was almost im- 
 possible. Open-field farmers could not change their fifild-customs 
 without the consent of the whole body of partners. Farmers in 
 individual occupation of their holdings had not, as a general rule, 
 the enterprise, the education, the capital, or the security of tenure, 
 to conduct experiments or adopt improvements. 
 
 But the period was one of active preparation. A crowd of 
 agricultural writers followed in the train of Fitzherbert, Tusser, 
 and Googe. Leonard Mascall in his Booke of CatteU (1591) had 
 instructed husbandmen in the more skilful " government " of 
 horses, oxen, cattle, and sheep. Gervase Markham wrote on every 
 variety of agricultural subjects, multiplying his treatises under 
 different titles with a rapidity which gained for him the distinction 
 of being the " first English hackwriter," and proved that books on 
 farming found a' sale.^ Horses were made the subject of special 
 treatment. Blundeville's Power chiefyat offices belonging to Horae- 
 manahippe (1565-6) was followed by such books as Markham's 
 Diacourae on Horaemanahippe (1593) and How to Ghuae, Bide, Trayne, 
 
 ^ As an agricultural writer, Markham's reputation was doubtful, in spite 
 of the many editions which were published of his works. In Hartlib's Ltgade 
 (1661) B. Child in his " Large Letter " had spoken of the want of a complete 
 book on English husbandry. On this a critic had remarked " England hath a 
 perfect systeme of Husbandry, viz. Markham." The author replies (Legcusie, 
 3rd edition, 1655) : " He speaketh more of Markham than ever I heard 
 before, or as yet have seen. In general he is accounted Uttle more than a 
 Translator, unless about Cattle, and yet I cannot but in that question his 
 skill. . . . The works which I have seen of his are, first, the great book 
 translated out of French " (The Cowntry Farm, 1616, a revision of Surflet's 
 translation of the Maiaon Ruatigue, with additions from foreign writers), 
 " which whether well or ill done, I will not declare ; but I am sure our Hus- 
 bcmdmen in England profit little by it. Secondly I have seen five several 
 bookes bound up together, two or three of which he acknowledgeth to be 
 anothers, as The Improvement of the Wild of Kent, also his Houawifery he 
 acknowledgeth to have had from a Countess, also part of his Farewell is 
 borrowed, and what he owneth, if I have seen all, are very short in many 
 particulars. . . . Yea, if I understand any thing, he setteth down many 
 gross untruths, which every Countryman will contradict." He quotes 
 instances, cmd concludes " he hath done well in divers things, and is to be 
 commended for his industry." 
 
106 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 and Dyet both Hunting and Sunning Horses (1599), by Grymes's 
 Honest and Plaine Dealing Farrier (1636), and by John Crawshey's 
 Cowatryman's Instructor (1636). Then, as now, horsedealing was a 
 trial of the sharpest wits, blunted by the fewest scruples. Crawshey, 
 who describes himself as a " plaine Yorkshire man," warns his 
 readers against being deceived when buying horses in the market, 
 " for many men will protest and swear e that they are sound when 
 they know the contrary, onely for their private gaine." Where so 
 much is strange in farming matters, it is refreshing to find familiar 
 features. The proper treatment of woodlands was discussed by 
 Staudish (1611). Rowland Vaughan (1610), struck by the sight of 
 a streamlet issuing from a mole-heap in a bank, discussed new 
 methods of irrigation, or " the summer and winter drowning " of 
 meadows and pasture. Even the smaller profits of farming received 
 attention. Numerous books were published on orchards, and on 
 gardens, in which were now accumulating such future stores of 
 agricultural riches as turnips, carrots, and potatoes. Mascall in 
 1581 had written on the " husbandlye Ordring of Poultry " ; Sir 
 Hugh Plat had instructed housewives in the art of fattening fowls 
 for the table ; and John Partridge published a treatise on the same 
 subjects, in which he gives recipes for keeping their natural foes at 
 bay. The following may be recommended to Hunt Secretaries, who 
 are impoverished by demands on their poultry fimds. " Rub your 
 poultry," says Partridge, " with the juice of Rue or Herbe grasse 
 and the wesels shall do them no hurt ; if they eate the lungs or 
 lights of a Foxe, the Foxes shall not eate them." Nor were bees 
 neglected. Thomas Hill (1568), and Edmund Southeme (1593) had 
 written on the " right ordering " of bees. But Charles Butler's 
 Feminine Monarchie (1609), and John Levett's Orderinge of Bees 
 (1634) became the standard authorities on the subject. Both books 
 were known to Robert Child, author of the Large Letter on the 
 deficiencies of English husbandry, published by Hartlib in 1651 .^ 
 He says that Butler " hath written so exactly, and upon his owne 
 experience " that little remained to be added. Henry Best (1641),* 
 however, preferred Levett to any other writer on bee-keeping. 
 " Hee is the best," he thinks, " that ever writte of this subjeckt." 
 During the same period men like Gabriel Plattes or Sir Richard 
 
 1 HartUb's Z/egaeie, p. 64. Bobert Child in the 1651 edition speaks of Levett 
 as " Leveret." 
 * Farming Book, p. 68. 
 
SIR RICaaARD WESTON 107 
 
 Weston were suggesting new agricultural methods, or introducing 
 new crops which were destined to change the face of English farm- 
 ing. Plattes (1638), who seems to have been of Flemish origin, 
 urged that com should be steeped before sowing, and not sown 
 broadcast but set in regular rows. To those who adopted the sug- 
 gestion of the " com setter," he promised a yield of a hundred-fold, 
 and he invented a drill to facilitate and cheapen the process. Plattes 
 was on the verge of a great improvement. But men who looked 
 for no larger return than six-fold or eight-fold on the grain sown, 
 regarded his promise as the dream of a visionary who had not 
 travelled beyond the sound of Bow Bells. Unfortunately, the 
 career of Plattes confirmed the contempt with which practical 
 farmers were ready to regard the theories of agricultural writers. 
 Like Tusser, he failed in farming. As Tusser died (1580) in the 
 debtor's prison of the Poultry Compter, so Plattes is said to have 
 died starving and shirtless in the streets of London.^ 
 
 Sir Richard Weston could at least lay claim to thirty years 
 experience in the successful improvement of his estates at Sutton 
 in Surrey " by Fire and Water." He had enriched his heathy land 
 by the process of paring and burning, " which wee call Devon- 
 shiring " ; he had also adopted Vaughan's suggestion of irrigation, 
 and proved its value on his own meadows. But the important 
 change with which Weston's name wiU always be associated is the 
 introduction of a new rotation of crops, founded on the field cultiva- 
 tion of roots and clover. As Brillat-Savarin valued a new dish 
 above a new star, so Arthur Young regards Weston as " a greater 
 ben^actor than Newton." He did indeed offer bread and meat 
 to millions. Whether Weston had visited Flanders before 1644 is 
 uncertain. His attempt to make the Wey navigable by means of 
 locks suggests that he was acquainted with the foreign system of 
 canals. On the other hand, his treatise on agriculture implies that 
 he paid his first visit to the country in that year as a refugee. A 
 Royalist and a Catholic, Weston, at the outbreak of the Civil War, 
 was driven into exile, and his estates were sequestrated. He took 
 refuge in Flanders. There he studied the Flemish methods of 
 agriculture, especially their use of flax, clover, and turnips. For 
 the field cultivation of clover he advises that heathy ground should 
 be pared, burned, limed, and well ploughed and harrowed ; that 
 the seed should be sown in April, or the end of March, at the rate 
 1 Hortlib's Legacie (Srd edition, 1656), p. 183. 
 
108 PROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 of ten pounds of seed to the acre ; that, once sown, the crop should 
 be left for five years. The results of his observations, embodied in 
 his Discours of the Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders, were 
 written in 1645 and left to his sons as a " Legacie." The subse- 
 quent history of the " Legacie " is curious. Circulated in manu- 
 script, an imperfect copy fell into the hands of Samuel Hartlib, 
 who piratically published it in 1650, with an unctuous dedication 
 " to the Right Honorable the Council of State." In the following 
 year HartUb seems to have learned the name of the author and to 
 have obtained possession of a more perfect copy. He therefore 
 wrote two letters to Weston, asking him to correct and enlarge his 
 " Discourse." Receiving no answer, he republished the treatise in 
 1651. Eighteen years later, the Discours was again appropriated — 
 this time by Gabriel Reeve, who, in 1670, reprinted it under the 
 title of Directions left by a OenUeman to his Sons for the Improve- 
 ment of Barren and Heathy Land in England and Wales. 
 
 Roots, clover, and artificial grasses subsequently revolutionised 
 English farming ; but it was more than a centiuy before their use 
 became at all general. Other crops were pressed by agricultural 
 writers upon the attention of farmers — such as flax, hemp, hops, 
 woad and madder for dyes, saffron, liquorice, rape, and coleseed. 
 A more important suggestion was the field cultivation of potatoes, 
 which hitherto had been treated as exotics, rarely found except in 
 the gardens of the rich. In 1664 John Forster ^ urged farmers to 
 grow them in their fields. He distinguishes " Irish Potatoes " from 
 Spanish, Canadian, or Virginian varieties, points to their success in 
 Ireland, notices their introduction into Wales and the North of 
 England, and recommends their trial in other parts of the country. 
 It was not till the Napoleonic wars that the advice was taken to 
 any general extent. None of these crops, it may be observed, 
 could be introduced on an open-field farm, imless the whole body 
 of agrarian partners agreed to alter their field customs. 
 
 Another noteworthy book is the Legacie (1651), which passes 
 under the name of Samuel HartUb, who has gained undeserved credit 
 by his piracy of Weston's work. By birth a Pole, Hartlib had come 
 to England in 1628. By his Beformation of Schooles (1642), trans- 
 lated from Comenius, he forced himself on the notice of Milton, who 
 in 1644 curtly addressed to biTn his Tract Of Education. From. 
 Weston's Discours, Hartlib stole the title of the Legacie (1651), com- 
 1 Englcmd'e Happinets Increaeed, etc., by John Forster Gent. 1664. 
 
FARMING DEFICIENCIES 109 
 
 posed of letters from various writers on the defects of English 
 agriculture, and their remedies. Five-sixths of the Legacie are taken 
 up with " A Large Letter . . . written to M. Samuel HartUb," 
 signed (1655), by B. Child. It throws a clear Ught on some of the 
 conditions of English farming in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 In the " Large Letter " the cumbrousness of the English ploughs, 
 carts, and waggons is noticed. Clumsy implements and bad prac- 
 tices were said to exist side by side with obvious improvements, 
 which yet foimd no imitators. Some Kentish farmers used " 4, 6, 
 yea 12 horses and oxen " in their ploughs, and in Ireland farmers 
 fastened their horses by the tails. Yet in Norfolk the practice was 
 to plough with two horses only, while in Kent itself, a certain 
 Colonel Blunt of Gravesend ploughed with one horse, and an ingeni- 
 ous yeoman had invented a double-furrow plough. Men who 
 perplexed their brains about perpetual motion would, says the 
 writer, have used their ingenuity to more effect it they had tried 
 to improve the implements of agriculture. Cattle-breeding, except 
 " in Lancashire and some few Northern Counties " was not studisd ; 
 no attempt was made to improve the best breeds for milking or 
 for fattening. Dairying needed attention ; butter might be " better 
 sented and tasted " ; our cheeses were inferior to those of Italy, 
 France, or Holland.^ Various remedies against the prevalence of 
 smut and mildew in wheat are suggested, including hme, change of 
 seed, early sowing, and the use of bearded wheat. Flax and hemp 
 were unduly neglected, though both might be grown, it is sug- 
 gested, with profit to agriculturists, and to the great increase of 
 employment ; as a remedy against this persistent neglect, the 
 author advocates compulsory legislation, to force farmers, " even 
 like brutes, to understand their own good." Twenty-one natural 
 substances are recommended as manures, the value of which had 
 been proved by experience. Among them are chalk, marl, lime, 
 farm-yard dung, if it is not too much exposed to the sun and rain ; 
 " snaggreet," or soil full of small sheUs taken out of rivers, and 
 much used in Surrey ; owse, from marshy ditches or foreshores ; 
 seaweed ; sea-sand, as used in Cornwall ; " folding of sheepe after 
 
 1 This also had been the opinion of Googe, who places the Parmesan cheese 
 of Italy fiist. Then follow, in order of merit, the cheeses of Holland, Nor- 
 mandy, and lastly, of England. Among English cheeses the best came from 
 Cheshire, Shropshire, Banbury, Suffolk, and Essex. " The very worste " is 
 " the Kentish cheese." 
 
110 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 the Maunders maimer, (viz.) mider a covert, in which earth is 
 strawed about 6 inches thick " ; ashes, soot, pigeons' dung, 
 msElt-dust, blood, shavings of horn, woollen rags as used in 
 Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and Kent. It need scarcely be pointed 
 out that for none of these fertilisers was the agriculturist indebted 
 to chemistry, and that no attempt was as yet made to restore to 
 the soil the special properties of which it is impoverished by par- 
 ticular crops. To meadows and pasture no attention was paid ; 
 mole-heaps and ant-hills were not spread and levelled ; in laying 
 down land to graze, little care was taken to sow the best and sweetest 
 grasses. Clover, sainfoin, and lucerne were generally ignored. 
 The practice of " aoiling," that is, of cutting clover green as fodder 
 for cattle, is, however, commended. Large tracts of land were 
 allowed to lie waste, so " that there are more waste lands in England 
 than in all Europe besides, considering the quantity of land." 
 Among the waste lands he includes " dry heathy commons." " I 
 know," he adds, " that poore people wiU cry out against me because 
 I call these waste lands : but it's no matter." 
 
 The destruction of woods for fuel is condemned. For this con- 
 sumption the glass furnaces of the South, the salt " wiches " of 
 Cheshire, and, above aU, the iron-works of Surrey, Sussex, and 
 other counties, were responsible. The writer probably alludes to 
 " Dud " Dudley's experiments, when he expresses the hope that 
 the difficulties of using " sea-coal " for the smelting of iron might 
 be overcome so as to save our timber. Experiments were not 
 sufficiently tried, and a " Colledge of Experiments," already recom- 
 mended by Gabriel Plattes, is once more suggested. Men do not 
 know where to go if they want advice, or to obtain reliable seeds 
 and plants. Some means was needed of bringing home to other 
 husbandmen a knowledge of the improvements made by their more 
 skilful brethren. Another deficiency in English husbandry was its 
 insular repugnance to foreign methods and new-fangled crops. 
 Men objected that the new seeds " will not grow here with us, for 
 our forefathers never used them. To these I reply and ask them, 
 how they know ? have they tryed ? Idlenesse never wants an 
 excuse ; and why might not our forefathers upon the same ground 
 have held their hands in their pockets, and have said, that Wheat, 
 and Barley, would not have grown amongst us ? " The same com- 
 plaint, it may be added, is made by Walter Blith in The English 
 Improver Improved : " The fourth and last abuse is a calumniating 
 
EXAGGERATED PROMISES OF " RUSTICK AUTHORS " 111 
 
 and depraving every new Invention ; of this most culpable are your 
 mouldy old leavened husbandmen, who themselves and their fore- 
 fathers have been accustomed to such a course of husbandry as 
 they will practise, and no other ; their resolution is so fixed, no 
 issues or events whatsoever shall change them. If their neighbour 
 hath as much com of one Acre as they of two upon the same land, or 
 if another plow the same land for strength and nature with two 
 horses and one man as well as he, and have as good com, as he hath 
 been used with four horses and two men yet so he will continue. Or 
 if an Improvement be discovered to him and all his neighbours, hee'l 
 oppose it and degrade it. What forsooth saith he, who taught you 
 more wit than your forefathers ? " Seventeenth century farmers 
 did not lack descendants in later generations. It took a heavy 
 hammer and many blows to drive a nail through heart of oak. 
 
 It would be unjust to lay on agriculturists the whole blame for 
 neglect of improvements. Much deserves to rest on the agri- 
 cultural writers themselves. Their promises were often exaggerated 
 beyond the bounds of beUef ; mixed with some useful suggestions 
 were others which were either ridiculous or of doubtful value. Men 
 actually and practically engaged in cultivating the soil were, there- 
 fore, justified in some distrust of book-farmers. Turnips were 
 undoubtedly an invaluable addition to agricultural resources. But 
 it was an exaggeration to say with Adolphus Speed ^ that they were 
 the only food for cattle, swine, and poultry, sovereign for con- 
 ditioning " Hunting dogs," an admirable ingredient for bread, 
 affording " two very good crops " each year, supplying " very good 
 Syder " and " exceeding good Oyl." Nor was confidence in Speed's 
 advice on other topics likely to be inspired by his promise that land, 
 rented at £200 a year, might be made to realise a net annual profit 
 of £2000 by keeping rabbits. Similarly the remedy which is sug- 
 gested in Hartlib's Legacie (3rd edition, 1655) " against the Rot, 
 and other diseases in Sheep and Horses " is enough to cast suspicion 
 on the whole book : " Take Serpents or (which is better) Vipers," 
 advises the writer, " cut their heads and tayls off and dry the rest 
 to powder. Mingle this powder with salt, and give a few grains 
 of it so mingled now and then to your Horses and Sheep." Other 
 suggested remedies are, at least, more easy of appUcation. " The 
 colicke or pain in the belly (in oxen) is put away in the beholding 
 of geese in the water, specially duckes." If a horse sickens from 
 * Adam out of Eden (1659). 
 
112 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 some mysterious ailment, " a piece of fern-root placed under his 
 tongue will make hini immediately voyde, upward and downward, 
 whatsoever is in his body, and presently amende." Again, 
 neither silkworms nor vineyards, though both are favourites with 
 the Stewart theorists, commend themselves strongly as a safe 
 livelihood to practical men whiT farmed under an English climate. 
 Nor was it possible to take seriously the proposed introduction of 
 " Black Foxes, Miiske-cats, Sables, Marlines," etc., suggested by 
 Robert Child, the author of the principal tract in the Legaeie, as an 
 addition to the agricultural wealth of the country. He adds to his 
 list " the Elephant, the greatest, wisest, and longest-Uved of all 
 beasts . . . very serviceable for carriage (15 men usually riding on 
 his backe together)." It would have added variety to English rural 
 life to see the partners in a village farm conveyed to their holdings 
 on the back of a co-operative elephant, and dropping oS as they 
 arrived at their respective strips. But it is doubtful whether they 
 would have found their four-footed omnibus " not chargeable to 
 keepe." Literary and experimental agricultiu:istB naturally gained 
 a reputation similar to that of quack medicine vendors. In practice 
 they often failed. Like ancient alchemists, they starved in the 
 midst of their golden dreams. Tusser, teaching thrift, never throve. 
 Gabriel Plattes, the corn setter, died for want of bread. Donald- 
 son, the author of the first Scottish agricultural treatise, admits 
 that he took to writing books because he could not succeed on the 
 land. Even Arthur Young failed twice in farm management before 
 he began his invaluable tours. 
 
 In the " Large Letter " on the defects of English farming, and 
 their remedies, from which quotations have been already made, 
 Child also notices the amount of land that lay waste from want 
 of drainage. This was one of the crying needs of agriculture. 
 Without extensive drainage, the introduction of new crops and 
 improved practices was impossible. With the hour comes the man. 
 The necessity and methods of drainage were ably discussed by 
 Walter Blith. Writing as " a lover of Ingenuity," he published his 
 English Improver in 1649. His treatise, interlarded with biblical 
 quotations, was the first which dealt with draining. As the Puritans 
 of the day sought Scriptural authority for their political constitu- 
 tion, so the Puritan farmer justifies his advocacy of drainage by 
 references to the Bible. " Oan the rush," he asks with Bildad, 
 " grow without mire or the flagg without water ? " In other ways 
 
WALTER BLITH 113 
 
 also Blith's work is significant of the era of the Civil War. He 
 himself beat his ploughshare into a sword, became a captain in the 
 Bomidhead army, dedicated his second edition mider the title of 
 The English Improver Impraoed (1652) " to the Right Honourable 
 the Lord Generall Cromwell," adorns it with a portrait of himseK 
 arrayed in fuU mihtary costume, and adds the legend ' Vive La Re 
 Pvblick: 
 
 Among the remedies which Bhth suggests for the defects of 
 English farming, he urges the employment of more capital ; 
 enclosures, with due regard to cottiers and labourers ; the aboUtion 
 of " slavish customs " ; the removal of water-mills ; the extinction 
 of " vermine " ; the recognition of tenant-right. It is an indica- 
 tion of agricultural progress that the question of tenants' improve- 
 ments should be thus forcing itself to the front. Sir Richard 
 Weston in his Discours called attention to the Flemish custom, 
 unknown to HiTn in England, of " taking a Farm upon Improvement." 
 In Flanders leases for twenty-one years were taken on condition 
 that " whatsoever four indifEerent persons (whereof two to bee 
 chosen by the one, and two by the other) should judg the Farm to 
 bee improved at the end of his Leas, the Oivner was to paie so much 
 in value to the Tenant for his improving it." In the Preface to his 
 Legacie, Hartlib had imitated Weston in urging the adoption of 
 this custom in England. BUth, who also quotes the Flemish lease 
 with approval, points out the injustice of the English law and the 
 hindrance to all improvements which it created. " If," he sajra, 
 " a Tenant be at never so great paines or cost for the improvement 
 of his Land, he doth thereby but occasion a greater Rack upon him- 
 self, or else invests his Land-Lord into his cost and labour gratia, 
 or at best lies at his Land-Lord's mercy for requitall ; which 
 occasions a neglect of all good Husbandry. . . . Now this I 
 humble conceive may be removed, if there were a Law Inacted, by 
 which every Land-Lord should be obliged, either to give biin 
 reasonable allowance for his clear Improvement, or else sufier him 
 or his to enjoy it so much longer as till he hath had a proportionable 
 requitall." The question had not yet become acute ; but, with 
 the insecurity of tenure which then prevailed, it was not surprising 
 that tenant-f aimers were averse to improvements. Their experi- 
 ence was embodied in the proverbial saying current in Berkshire : 
 
 " He that havocs may sit 
 He that improves must flit." 
 H 
 
114 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 The same experience inspired the popular saying prevalent in the 
 Lowlands of Scotland. Donaldscm, in his Husbandry Anatomised 
 (1697) says that, when a tenant improves his land, " the Land- 
 lord obUgeth him either to augment his Rent, or remove, insomuch 
 that it's become a Proverb (and I think none more true), Bowih 
 and Sit, Improve and Flit." 
 
 In treating of drainage, BUth deals not only with surface water 
 but the constant action of springs and stagnant bottom water. He 
 urges that no man should attempt to lay out his drains by the eye 
 alone, but by the aid of " a true exact Water Levell," an instrument 
 which he carefully describes and depicts. No drain, he said, could 
 touch the " cold spewing moyst water that feeds the flagg and 
 rush," unless it was " a yard or four feet deep," provided with 
 proper outfalls. The drains were to be filled with elder boughs or 
 with stones, and turfed over. He insists that they should be cut 
 straight, not, as open-field farmers were compelled to cut them — 
 for want of space or from the opposition of their neighbours — ^with 
 turns and angles. His views are sound and advanced on general 
 schemes of drainage, which, for " the commonwealth's advantage " 
 should, he suggests, be enforced by compulsory powers upon land- 
 owners. 
 
 When BUth wrote, the condition of the fens had become a matter 
 of national importance. It was now that the great work of draining 
 and reclaiming the drowned district had been for the first time 
 seriously undertaken on a scale commensurate with the magnitude 
 of the task. It is singular that foreigners should have taught the 
 English how to deal, not only with land, but with water. As 
 farmers, the Low Countries were far in advance of England, and 
 from them came the most valuable improvements in agricultural 
 methods, as well as the most useful additions to agricultural 
 resources. Dutchmen drained our fens ; irrigation, warping, canals 
 were all foreign importations. The irrigation of meadows, which 
 M. de Girardin described as a sound insurance against drought, is 
 said to have been first practised in England in modem times by the 
 notorious " Horatio Pallavazene," of Babraham ..." who robbed 
 the Pope to lend the Queen." Warping was brought from Italy 
 to the Isle of Axholme in the e^hteenth century, and by its means 
 the deposits at the estuary of the Humber were converted into 
 " polders." The Dutch and Flemings had mastered the secret of 
 locks and canals long before any attempt was made to render 
 
THE DRAINING OF THE FENS 115 
 
 English rivers navigable, or available for water-carriage in inland 
 districts. The great French " Canal du Midi " was completed in 
 1681, nearly a centuiy before the example was followed in England. 
 In this connection it may be also noticed that a colony of Walloon 
 emigrants, settled at Thomey towards the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, introduced into the district the practice of paring and 
 burning the coarse tussocks of grass, and the paring plough was 
 long known as the French plough. 
 
 Robert Child in his " Large Letter " on the most notable 
 deficiencies of English agriculture, printed in HartUb's Legacie (1651), 
 suggests that the drainage of marshes was not begun till the reign of 
 Elizabeth. " In Qu. Elizabeth's dayes," he writes, " Ingenuities, 
 Curiosities, and Oood Husbandry began to take place, and then 
 Salt Marshes began to be fenced from the Seas." In this he is 
 mistaken. Some progress had been made at an earher date. A 
 number of Acts were passed in the reign of Henry VlH. for the 
 reclamation of marshes and fens by undertakers, who were usually 
 rewarded with half the reclaimed land. Thus Wapping Marsh was 
 reclaimed by Cornelius Vanderdelf in 1544, and the embankment of 
 Plumstead and Greenwich Marshes was begun in the same reign. 
 Isolated marshes had been drained in the eastern counties during 
 the reign of Elizabeth. Norden (Surveyor's Diaiogue, 1607) says : 
 " much of the Fennes is made lately firme ground, by the skill of 
 one Captaine Lovell, and by M. WiUiam Englebert, an excellent 
 Ingenor." But it was not till the reign of Charles I. that any 
 serious attempt was made to deal with the Great Level of the Fens, 
 which extended into the six counties of Cambridge, Lincoln, Hunting- 
 don, Northampton, Suffolk, and Norfolk. 
 
 Seventy miles in length, and varying in breadth from ten to 
 thirty miles, the fens comprised an area of nearly 700,000 acres. 
 Now a richly fertile, highly cultivated district, it was, in the seven- 
 teenth century, a wUdemess of bogs, pools, and reed-shoak — ^a 
 vast morass, from which, here and there, emerged a few islands of 
 soUd earth. Here dwelt an amphibious population, travelling in 
 punts, walking on stilts, and living mainly by fishing, cutting willows, 
 keeping geese, and wild-fowling. " H. C." who, in 1629, urged upon 
 the Government the Drayning of Fennes, paints an unattractive 
 picture of the country : " The Aer Nebulous, Grosse, and full of 
 rotten Harres ; the Water putred and muddy, yea, full of loath- 
 some Vermine ; the Earth spuing, unfast, and boggie ; the Fire 
 
116 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 noysome turfe and hassocks ; such are the inconveniences of the 
 Drownings." Eight great principal rivers — the Great Ouse, the 
 Cam, the Nene, the Welland, the Glen, the Milden-hall or Lark, the 
 Brandon or Lesser Ouse, and the Stoke or Wissey' — carry the 
 upland waters through this wide stretch of flat country towards the 
 sea. Whenever the rains fell, the rivers rose above their banks, 
 and, especially if the wind was blowing from the east or south, 
 flooded the cotmtry for miles around. It was only in the map that 
 they reached the ocean at all. Two causes principally contributed 
 to make the country a brackish swamp. The outfalls of the rivers 
 had become silted up so that their mouths were choked by many 
 feet of alluvial deposit.* Twice every day the tides rushed up the 
 channels for a considerable distance, forcing back the fresh water, 
 and converting the whole country into one vast shallow bay. 
 Efforts had been made by the Romans to reclaim these flat levels, 
 and their " causey " is still in existence. In the palmy days of the 
 great monasteries of Crowland, Thomey, Ely, and Ramsey, isolated 
 districts were occupied, and highly cultivated. WiUiam of Malmes- 
 bnry, writing in the reign of Henry 11. (1143), describes the district 
 round Thomey as " a very Paradise in pleasure and delight ; it 
 resembles heaven itself — ^it abounds in lofty trees, neither is any 
 waste place in it ; for in some parts there are apple trees, in other 
 vines which either spread upon the ground or run along poles." 
 Such a description applies only to the islands on which the great 
 monasteries were situated. The rest of the country had become, 
 at some unknown period of history, an unproductive bog, affording 
 little benefit to the realm other than fish and fowl, and "overmuch 
 harbour to a rude and almost barbarous sort of lazy and beggarly 
 people." 
 
 No important effort was made to reclaim the district till the time 
 of John Morton, Bishop of Ely, afterwards a Cardinal and Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbmy, in the reign of Henry VII. As a grower of 
 strawberries he is enshrined in literature ; but in the history of 
 
 * Sir Jonas Moore, History of the Great Level of the Fennea (168S), p. 9 ; 
 Wells, Hietory of the Bedford Level (1830), vol. i. p. 6 ; Vermuyden, Discourse 
 touching the Drayning of the Qreat Fennes (1642), p. 4. 
 
 • Andrewes Burrell, in his Brief e Relation Discovering Plamely the True 
 Ca/uses why the Qreat Levell of Fetiea . . . have been drowned (1642), says that, 
 when working for the Earl of Bedford in 1636 in deepening " Wisbeach 
 Biver," he " discovered a stony bottome upon which there was found lying 
 at several! distances seven boates, which for many yeores had laine buried 
 eight foot under the bottome of the river." 
 
COMPLETION OF THE FEN DRAINAGE 117 
 
 farming his principal achievement was probably suggested by his 
 residence in Flanders from 1483 to 1485 as a poUtical refugee. A 
 cut, forty feet wide and four feet deep, running from Peterborough 
 to Wisbech, still bears the name of " Morton's Learn " and still 
 plays an important part in the drainage of the country. Other 
 local efforts were made, which proved for the most part ineffective. 
 In spite of individual enterprise, the general condition of the district 
 was so deplorable that it attracted the attention of the Government. 
 The fens were surveyed, Ck>mmissioners and Courts of Sewers 
 appointed, and an Act (1601) was passed for the drainage of the 
 Great Level. In 1606, under a local Act, a portion of the Isle of 
 Ely was reclaimed, the undertakers receiving two-thirds of the land 
 thus recovered from the water. In 1626 the drainage of Hatfield 
 Chase, Ditchmarsh, and all the lands through which crept the Idle, 
 the Aire, and the Don, was commenced by ComeUus Vermuyden. 
 Three years later, the greater task was attempted of draining that 
 portion of the fens which was afterwards known as the Bedford 
 Level. In 1630 the local gentry who formed the Commoissioners of 
 Sewers, contracted with Vermuyden (now Sir Cornelius) to execute 
 the work, and the fourth Earl of Bedford headed the undertaking. 
 The work began vigorously enough. In 1637 the Commissioners 
 of Sewers certified its completion ; but the winter rains flooded 
 the country ; the Earl of Bedford was at the end of his resources ; 
 he had spent £100,000, and was in danger of losing it all. The 
 certificate of completion was reversed. Charles I. intervened ; 
 fresh arrangements were made for the allotment of the recovered 
 land ; a new Company of Adventurers was formed ; Vermuyden 
 still directed the operations, although his skill was attacked by 
 Andrewes Burrell in his Briefe Relation (1642). Vermuyden in his 
 defence {Discourse, 1642) pleaded that the only purpose of the 
 first Agreement was to make the land " summer groimd." The 
 new venture was more ambitious. Though the work was partially 
 suspended during the Civil War, it proceeded under the Common- 
 wealth. In 1649 the fifth Earl of Bedford joined the imdertaking, 
 and, four years later, the drainage was finished. New channels 
 and drains were made to carry off the surface water ; existing 
 drains were scoured and straightened ; banks were raised to restrain 
 the rivers within their beds ; new outfalls into the sea, provided 
 with sluices, were made, and old ones deepened and widened ; 
 numerous dams were erected to keep out the sea. In 1652 Sir C. 
 
118 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 Vermuyden reported the completion of the work to the CouncU, 
 saying that " wheat and other grains, besides unnmnerable quantities 
 of sheep, cattle, and other stock were raised, where never had been 
 any before." The Bedford Level was the largest work imdertaken. 
 It was also the most complete, iihougheven here for a time there 
 were failures. Other marshes were attacked by improvers, with 
 more or less success. From various causes, however, the water 
 often regained its hold on the coimtiy. In some cases the work 
 was only partially finished ; in others, it was so inadequately 
 executed by persons whom BUth calls " mountebank engineers, 
 idle practitioners, and slothful impatient slubberers," that it broke 
 down under the rainfall of the first wet season ; in others, the wind- 
 mills, which were used to raise the water of the interior districts 
 to the levels of the main rivers, could not cope with a flood ; in 
 others, the works were destroyed by the fenmen, and were not 
 really restored till the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The marshes were to fenmen what wastes and commons were to 
 dwellers on their verge. Catching pike and plucking geese were 
 more attractive than feeding bullocks or shearing sheep. Any 
 change from desultory industries to the settled labour of agriculture 
 was in itself distasteful to the commoners, and Uttle, if any, com- 
 pensation was made for their rights or claims to pasture, turf- 
 cutting, fishing, or fowling. All over the fen districts there were, 
 on the one side, outbursts of popular indignation, and, on the 
 other, complaints of the " riotous letts and disturbances of lewd 
 persons." The commoners were called to arms by some Tyrtaeus 
 of the fens, whose doggerel verses have been preserved by Dugdale 
 in his History of Imbanking and Draining : 
 
 Come, brethren of the water, and let us all assemble. 
 
 To treat upon this matter which makes us quake and tremble. 
 
 For we shall rue it, if' t be true, the Fens be undertaken. 
 
 And where we feed in fen and reed; they'll feed both beef and bacon. 
 
 Behold the great design, which they do now determine. 
 
 Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermin ; 
 
 For they do mean all fens to drain and waters overmaster ; 
 
 AH will be dry and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want pasture. 
 
 The feathered fowls have wings to fly to other'nations, 
 
 But we have no such things to help ova transportations ; 
 
 We must give place (oh grievous case 1) to homM beasts and cattle. 
 
 Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battle. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF THE DRAINAGE WORKS 119 
 
 Wherefore let us entreat our ancient water nurses 
 
 To show their power so great as t'help to drain their purses. 
 
 And send us good old Captain Flood to lead us out to battle, 
 
 Then Twopenny Jack with skales on's ba«k will drive out all the cattle. 
 
 The CSvil Waxs gave the fenmen their opportunity. Vermuyden 
 seems to have been personally unpopular : he was a ZealandCT ; 
 most of his workmen were foreigners ; the adventurers who settled 
 on the lands which they had reclaimed were French or Dutch 
 Protestants. The commoners, moving swiftly and silently in their 
 boats, broke down the embankments, fired the mills, filled up the 
 drains, levelled the enclosures, turned their cattle into the standing 
 com. They attacked the workmen, threw some of them into the 
 river, held them under the water with poles, and burnt their tools. 
 The perpetrators of the outrages worked so secretly that they could 
 rarely be identified. Sometimes their action was bold and open. 
 In the neighbourhood of Hatfield Chase, near the Isle of Axholme, 
 every day for seven weeks, gangs of commoners, armed with mus- 
 kets, drew up the flood-gates so as to let in the flowing tide, and at 
 every ebb shut the sluices, threatening that they " would stay till 
 the whole level was weU drowned, and ,the inhabitants forced to 
 swim away like ducks." Even the rehgion of the French and 
 Dutch Protestants was not respected. From Epworth in 1656 
 comes their petition that the fenmen had made their church a 
 slaughter-house and a burying-place for carrion. Major-General 
 Whalley was entrusted by Parliament with the task of protecting 
 the adventurers. But agitators like Ijlbume and Noddel were at 
 work among his soldiers, and the commoners showed no respect 
 for the authority of Parhament. " They could make as good a 
 Parliament themselves ; it was a Parliament of clouts." In some 
 cases the resistance of the fenmen secured them further concessions ; 
 in others they succeeded in destroying the works of the under- 
 takers. It was not till after 1714 that the riots caused by the 
 reclamation ceased to disturb the peace of the country. By that 
 time the object was partially achieved, and many of the swamps 
 and marshes of the fen districts were restored to the ague-shivering, 
 fever-stricken inhabitants in their primitive unproductiveness. 
 
 The struggle for the reclamation of the waste-lands of the water- 
 drowned fens is another aspect of the older land-battle between 
 enclosers and commoners. Men like Robert Child in his Large 
 Letter in Hartlib's Legacie, or Walter BUth, championed reclamation 
 
120 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 for the same reasons that they advocated enclosures. The former, 
 writing in 1650 before the drainage was complete, speaks of " that 
 great Wen of lincolneshire, Cambridge, Hungtingdon, consisting, as 
 I am Informed, of 380,000 Acres, which is now almost recovered." 
 " Very great, therefore," he continues, " is the improvement of 
 draining of lands, and our negligence very great, that they have 
 been waste so long, and as yet so continue in divers places : for the 
 improving of a Kingdome is better than the conquering a new 
 one." Blith, writing three years later {English Improver Improved, 
 1652), speaks of the work as finished. " As to the Drayning, or 
 laying dry the Fenns," he says, " those profitable works, the Com- 
 mon-wealths glory, let not Curs Snarl, nor dogs bark thereat, the 
 unparralleld advantages of the World." But when these and 
 other writers of the period dealt with enclosures, they treated the 
 subject from a new point of view. As a matter of farming, their 
 arguments were sound. But economic gain might involve social 
 and moral loss, and the Stewart writers on agriculture tried to recon- 
 cile the two aspects of the question. In the interests of agricultural 
 progress, they are practically unanimous in their advocacy of indi- 
 vidual as opposed to common occupation of arable land. But in the 
 case of commons of pasture, they vigorously defended the claims of 
 the commoners, both tenant-farmers and cottagers. More advanced 
 members of the Repubhcan party went beyond the recognition of 
 pasture rights, and claimed the common, not for the open-field 
 farmers to whose arable holdings it was historically attached, but 
 for the general public — irrespective of claims arising from neighbour- 
 hood or from the tillage of adjacent land. On the practical assertion 
 of such claims a curious side-light is thrown by the proceedings of 
 Jerrard Winstanley in 1649. 
 
 Winstanley and his friends sought to establish a society having 
 all things in common. With this object they settled on the common 
 lands of St. George's Hill, near Walton-on-Thames, and began to 
 plough, cultivate, and enclose the land. Lord Fairfax's soldiers 
 burned their huts, and turned them o£E. Winstanley, in the jargon' 
 of the day, identified the struggle, in which his personal profits 
 were staked, with the prophetic Armageddon " between the Lamb 
 of Righteousness . . . and the Dragon of Unrighteousness." Need- 
 less to say, he found himself a champion of the former. He sets 
 forth his claims in a pamphlet addressed to the General as A Letter 
 to the Lord Fairfax and hie Council of War : . . . Proving it an 
 
A COMMUNISTIC SOCIETY 121 
 
 undeniable Equity That the Common People ought to dig, plow, plant, 
 and duxU upon the Commons, without hiring them or paying Rent to 
 any. He was, he says, opposed by none save " one or two covetous 
 freeholders that would have all the commons to themselves, and 
 that would uphold the Norman tyranny over us, which by the 
 victory that you have got over the Norman successor is plucked 
 up by the roots and therefore ought to be cast away." In other 
 words, the effect of the Civil War and of the defeat of Charles I., as 
 interpreted by his school of thought, was to establish the rights of 
 the people to " have the land freed from the entanglement of lords, 
 lords of manors, and landlords, which are our taskmasters," " to 
 enter on their inheritance," and "dig, plow, plant and dwell upon the 
 Commons " without rent, and improve them " for a public treasiuy 
 and livelihood." Instead of the existing law, the rule was to be 
 established of " First come, first served." For this appropriation 
 and improvement of the commons the inspiration of the " Lamb 
 of Righteousness " was claimed, so long as the new possessors were 
 Winstanley and his communistic society ; but the same processes 
 were the direct suggestion of the " Dragon of Unrighteousness," if 
 the work was carried out by the adjacent owners and cultivators 
 of the soil. In either case, whoever was the encloser, the general 
 public gained no advantage ; the pasture commons were ploughed, 
 enclosed, and appropriated to individuals. 
 
 The episode is significant. Probably Winstanley had, and has, 
 sympathisers. But the views of those practical agriculturists, who 
 were interested in the enclosure and tillage of open-fields and 
 commons in order to accelerate farming progress, were less revolu- 
 tionary. Had they been carried into efiect, much social loss might 
 have been averted. From the purely commercial side, their argu- 
 ments in favour of converting open-field land into separate holdings 
 and of enclosiog the commons and wastes were overwhelming. 
 There need be no depopulation, for tillage would be increased. If 
 the rights of commoners were respected, the social drawbacks to 
 the change might be removed. The whole question was assuming 
 a new form. The improvements in arable farming suggested by 
 Stewart and Commonwealth writers minimised the social loss caused 
 by enclosures, at the same time that they magnified the economic 
 waste of the open-field system. 
 
 Tudor farmers had treated arable and pasture farming as two 
 distinct branches, which could not be combined. On open-field 
 
122 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 land, though some live-stock was maintained by means of commons, 
 the energies of farmers were almost exclusively concentrated on 
 com. On enclosed land, com might be comparatively relegated 
 to the background, and the farmer's mainstays were meat, dairy 
 produce, and, if a flock-master, wool. So long as this rigid dis- 
 tinction was maintained, enclosures often meant depopulation and 
 a dwindling wheat-area. Experience was crystallised into the 
 proverb " No balks, no com." It is true that, towards the end 
 of Elizabeth's reign, the advantages which enclosures gave to the 
 enterprise of the arable farmer were reaUsed, and land began to be 
 fenced off, not for pasture only, but also for tillage. But the 
 economic case for enclosures was enormously strengthened, when the 
 real pivots of mixed husbandry were discovered, and when Stewart 
 agriculturists found that neither turnips, nor clover, nor artificial 
 grasses, nor potatoes, nor drainage, were possible on open-fields 
 which were held in common for half the year. Yet the experience 
 of the previous two himdred years had created a mass of well- 
 founded prejudice, which fought stubbornly against any extension 
 of the practice of enclosing land. It is for this reason, probably, 
 that the best writers of the Stewart and Commonwealth period 
 labour hard to prove that enclosures of open-fields and commons, 
 whatever their past history had been, necessitated neither depopula- 
 tion nor decay of tillage, and might even promote not only economic 
 but social gain. 
 
 In his Book of Surveying (1523) Fitzherbert had written on the 
 way " to make a township that is worth 20 marks a year worth 
 £20 a year." His plan was to discover, first, how many acres of 
 arable land each man occupied in the open-fields, how much meadow, 
 and what proportion of common pasture were attached to his hold- 
 ing ; and secondly, by means of exchange, to consolidate these 
 lands, lay them together, and enclose them in several occupation. 
 Every man should have " one little croft or close next to his house." 
 In the Briefe Examination (1549) the Doctor, who represents the 
 author's views, only condemns those enclosures of land which were 
 made for the conversion of tillage into pasture, or " without 
 recompence of them that have right to comen therein." It was 
 on this principle that in 1545 the Royal wastes of Hounslow Heath 
 were enclosed under the award of Commissioners, who set out a 
 portion of the heath to each inhabitant ; either as copyholds, or 
 on leases for terms of years. 
 
"THEEE ACRES AND A COW" 123 
 
 Sentiments like these became the commonplaces of Stewart and 
 Commonwealth writers. The demand for " three acres and a 
 cow " can show an origin of respectable antiquity. Gabriel Plattes 
 (1639) ^ pleads that all parties would gain by enclosures, landowners 
 by increased rents, clergymen by improved tithes, the poor by 
 increased employment. " I could wish," he adds, " that in every 
 Parish where Commons are inclosed, a comer might be laid to the 
 poore mens houses, that every one might keep a Cow or for the 
 maintenance of his familie two." The wish of the Stewart writer 
 had been expressed by a Tudor predecessor a century earUer. 
 Thomas Becon^ in 1540 had suggested that landlords should 
 attach to every cottage enough " land to keep a cow or two." Walter 
 Bhth* argues vigorously in favour of enclosures, and quotes with 
 approval the whole of Tusser's poem comparing " champion " 
 (open) and " severall " land. Of open-field farmers he says " Uve 
 they do indeed, very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger 
 and care. Better do those in Bridewell. And for the best of 
 them, they live as uncomfortably, moyling and toyling and drudg- 
 ing. What they get they spend." But in all enclosures he expressly 
 makes the condition that all interests should be provided for — ^not 
 only those of the landlord, but those also of the " Minister to the 
 People," the " Freeholder Farmer or Tenant," and the " Poor 
 Labourer or Cottier." All these, he says, would gain by the process. 
 He takes the last first : " Look what right or Interest he hath in 
 Common, I'U first allot out his proportion into severall with the 
 better rather than with the worse, a Proportion out of everyman's 
 inheritance." At the same time he condemns " depopulating 
 Inclosure . . . such as former oppressive times by the will and 
 power of some cruell Lord either through his greatness or purchased 
 favour at Court, or in the Common Courts of England, by his purse 
 and power could do anything, inclose, depopulate, destroy, mine aU 
 Tillage, and convert all to pasture without any other Improvement 
 at aU . . . which hath brought men to conceive, that because men 
 did depopulate by Enclosure, therefore it is now impossible to 
 enclose without Depopulation." 
 
 To the same effect as Bhth writes Robert Child in the " Large 
 
 ^ A Discovery of Infinite Treasure, Hidden since the World's Beginning, by 
 O(abTiel) P(lattes), 1639. 
 
 ' The Jewel of Joy, 1540. 
 
 ' English Invprover Invproved, ed. 1653. 
 
124 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 Letter " in Hartlib's Legacie (1651). He regards wastes and 
 commons as defects in English husbandry, and in defence of his 
 position asks eight questions, which he does not attempt to answer, 
 preferring to leave " the determination for wiser heads." 
 
 1. " Whether or no these lands might not be improved very much 
 by the Hriabandry of Flounders (viz.) by sowing Flax, Tumeps, great 
 Clover-Orasse, if that Manure be made by folding Sheepe after the 
 Flaundera way, to keepe it in heart ? 
 
 2. " Whether the Bottennesse and Scabbinesae of Sheepe, Murrein 
 of Cattel, Diseases of horses, and in general all diseases of Cattel 
 do not especially proceed from Commons ? 
 
 3. "If the rich men, who are able to keepe great stockes are not 
 great gainers by them ? 
 
 4. " Whether Commons do not rather make poore, by causing 
 idlenesse than maintaine them : and such poor, who are trained 
 up rather for the Gallowes or beggery, than for the Commonwealths 
 service ? 
 
 5. " How it cometh to passe, that there are fewest poore, where 
 there are fewest Commons, as in Kent, where there is scarce 6 Comr- 
 mons in the County of a considerable greatnesse ? ^ 
 
 6. " How many do they see enriched by the Commons : and if 
 their Cattel be not usually swept away by the Bat, or starved in 
 some hard winters ? 
 
 7. " If that poore men might not imploy 2 Acres enclosed to more 
 advantage, than twice as much in a Common ? 
 
 " And lastly, if that all Commons were enclosed, and part given to 
 the Inhabitants, and part rented out, for a stock to set the poore 
 on worke in every County." 
 
 Blith not only quoted Tusser in support of Ids opinion, but adds 
 that " all that ever I yet saw or read " held the same opinion. 
 " Tis true I have met with one or two small Pieces, as M. Spriggs, 
 and another whose name I remember not, that write against depopu- 
 lating Inclosure, with whom I freely joyn and approve." It is 
 probable that he alludes to Henty Halhead's Inclosure Thrown Open 
 etc. (1650), to which Joshua Sprigge of Banbury contributed a 
 
 ' Tusser held the some opinion that poverty and conunons go together. 
 In his comparison between " Champion Country and Several! " he writes : 
 
 " T'one barefoot and ragged doth go 
 And ready in winter to starve ; 
 When t'other you see not do so. 
 But hath that is needful to serve." 
 
THE CASE AGAINST ENCLOSURES 125 
 
 Preface. The tract is an appeal against enclosures, mainly based 
 on past history. It probably belongs to a group of pamphlets 
 dealing with the Midland counties, where the enclosing movement 
 seems to have been active. Halhead describes how would-be 
 enclosers begin by upsetting the field customs by which the cultiva- 
 tion of the land was regulated ; how they tell the people that they 
 will be three times as well off, that enclosure stops strife and con- 
 tention, " nourisheth Wood in hedges," and keeps sheep from 
 rotting. If they cannot prevail by these promises, they begin a 
 suit at law, and make the resisters dance attendance at the law- 
 courts for months and even years. Then they pull out their purses, 
 and offer to buy them out. If this fails, on goes the suit till a decree 
 against the open-field partners is granted in Chancery. The 
 description bears the stamp of accuracy. But, logically, neither 
 the old methods of enclosing nor the results of the conversion of 
 tUlage into pasture really met the case put forward by the new 
 advocates of enclosure as an instrument both of social and 
 agricultural progress. 
 
 The case for enclosures of open-field farms and commons is 
 vigorously stated in three tracts ; one by S. Taylor (1652) ; ^ another 
 by Adam Moore (1653) ; " the third by Joseph Lee (1656).* Their 
 arguments are mainly based on the wretched conditions of the 
 commons, the poor farming of open-field land, and the social and 
 agricultural gain which, as Lee's practical experience had shown, 
 resulted from individual occupation. None of the three authors 
 alludes to the recent discoveries of roots, clover, and grasses, or to 
 the improved methods of drainage, on which BUth and others so 
 strongly reUed. Of Taylor nothing is known, except that his tract 
 shows him to have been a vehement assailant of ale-houses. Moore 
 tells us that he was a Somersetshire man. The Rev. Joseph Lee 
 was a Leicestershire " Minister of the Gospel " at Cotesbaoh, who 
 had been violently attacked by his professional brethren for the 
 
 * Common Oood : or the Improvement of Commons, Forests, and Chases by 
 Indoaure, by S. T(aylor), 1652. 
 
 * Bread for the Poor . . . Promised by Enclosure of the Wastes and Common 
 Orounds of England, by Adam Moore, Gent. 1653. 
 
 'Ei>To|(a ToS 'Aypov; or a Vindication of a Regulated Enclosure, etc., by 
 Joseph Lee, Minister of the Gospel, 1656. 
 
 The contrary view to that taken by Lee was stated by John Moore, Minister 
 of Knaptoft in Leicestershire, whose tract The Crying Sin of England of not 
 Caring for the Poor, etc., was published in 1653. Moore's Scripture Word 
 against Incloswre (1656) was an answer to Lee. 
 
126 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 share he had himself taken in. the enclosure of Catthorp Common. 
 In his Epistle to the Reader he explains why he preferred to reply 
 to these attacks by a tract and not by a sermon : "I am very 
 sensible that if our pulpits had sounded more of the things of 
 Christ, and lesse of the things of the world, it had been better with 
 us then it is this day." Part of the tract consists of hard text- 
 fighting ; but its value lies in the facts which he quotes from his 
 own experience. 
 
 Enclosures, in the opinion of the three writers, are not only 
 " lawfull " but " laudable." They injure none, but profit aU. 
 Lee considers that five classes ought to be considered, landlords, 
 ministers, the poor, cottagers, and tenant-farmers. Moore omits 
 the ministers, but asserts the claims of the remaining four classes. 
 All three writers agree that a certain portion of the Commons ought 
 to be set aside for the poor, and the rest proportionately divided. 
 This, says Lee, was the principle adopted at Catthorp. If this 
 were done, there need be no depopulation. In proof Lee mentions 
 a number of parishes in Leicestershire, where the land had been 
 enclosed without any decay of population, houses, or tillage. 
 Neither would it lead to any diminution of useful employment. 
 The same number of maid-servants would be employed ; and 
 though there might be fewer lads, they would be more useful 
 citizens if set to some trade. On the industrial gain thus derived 
 from enclosures the three authors are also agreed. They in effect 
 answer the fourth question asked by Robert Child in the " Large 
 Letter " in HartUb's Legacie with an unhesitating aflSrmative. At 
 the beginning of the century, Norden (1607) had drawn attention 
 to the character of the squatters who settled on the edges of wastes 
 and commons. He describes them as " people given to Uttle or 
 no labour, hving very hardly with oaten bread and sour whey and 
 goat's milk, dwelling far from any church or chapel, . . . as ignorant 
 of Grod or of any civil course of life as the very savages among the 
 infidels, in a manner which is lamentable and fit to be reformed by 
 the lord of the manor." Fifty years later, according to the three 
 authors, commons were blots on the social life of the nation. 
 Children, says Taylor, are " brought up Lazying upon a Common 
 to attend one Cow and a few sheep," and " being nursed up in 
 idleness in their youth they become indisposed for labor, and then 
 begging is their portion or Theevery their Trade. . . . The two 
 great Nurseries of Idlenesse and Beggery etc. are Ale-houses and 
 
THE CASE FOR ENCLOSURES 127 
 
 Commons." Taylor says that " people are nowhere more penurious 
 than such as border on commons." " This poverty," he explains, 
 " is due to Grod's displeasure at the idleness of the Borderers," or 
 commoners. They have no settled industry. They look to the 
 profits of a horse or cow. if they can keep one ; if not, they can at 
 least " compass a goose or a swine." If they have no live-stock at 
 all, they are " sure of furze, fern, bushes, or cowdung, for fuel to 
 keep them warm in winter." They can beguile, writes Moore, the 
 " silly Woodcock and his feathered fellows by tricks and traps of 
 their own painful framing," and so gain money enough to keep them 
 till they have to work again. Sometimes they earn a few shillings 
 by guarding the flocks aad herds of others. But, if a sheep or a cow 
 is missing, the " chuck-fists " will not pay them their wage, but 
 suspect them of theft, and proceed against them by law. The 
 Commons are, in fact, " Nurseries of Thieves and Horse-stealers." 
 Lee is of the same opinion that commons fostered idleness. 
 Perhaps, he admits, "3 or 4 shepherd boyes " by enclosures " wiU 
 be necessitated to lay aside that idle emplojonent ; . . . destructive 
 to the soules of those Lads, in that, poor creatures, they are brought 
 up by this means without either civill or reHgious education." 
 When they should have been at school or at church, they were 
 " playing at nine-holes under a bush," while their cattle make a 
 prey on their neighbour's com, and " they themselves are made a 
 prey to Satan." Other moral gains are alleged that by enclosure 
 an end is put to occa/Sions for litigation and strife between 
 common-field farmers, or for quarrels between herdsmen, and that 
 there are fewer opportunities for pilferings of land and of com, or 
 for the destruction of a neighbour's crops by turning in hors^ and 
 cattle under pretence that they have broken loose from their 
 tethers. 
 
 It is not true, in the opinion of the three writers, that enclosures 
 necessarily destroy tillage. On the contrary, the cheapness and 
 abundance of com are due to the opportunities that enclosures 
 afford for breaking up worn-out pastures which yield double the 
 quantities produced on common fields. Nor is it true that enclosers 
 are under a curse so that the land passes out of their, famiUes. 
 Instances to the contrary are adduced from Leicestershire, and that 
 cannot be a sx>ecial curse on enclosures which is a fate common to 
 all other landholders. Enclosure may diminish the number of 
 horses ; but one horse well kept is worth three so " jaded and tyred 
 
128 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 
 
 as aie the horses of common-field farmers." Nor is it any tyranny 
 for the majority to enforce enclosure where the whole body of 
 partners are not unanimous. At Gatthorp one man with common 
 for seven sheep stood out. The rest overruled Viim ; but he lost 
 nothing. All that the other commoners did was to enclose their 
 portions of the common away from him. That the agricultural 
 gain is great, scarcely admits of a doubt. On open-fields the corn- 
 land is worn out. It can only be induced to bear at all by constant 
 ploughings and Uberal manurings, which absorb all profits in labour 
 and charges. Even then there is often Uttle more than a bare 
 return of seed, poor in quaUty — " small humble-Bee-Ears with 
 little grains." The pease land is no better ; it may provide enough 
 for seed and keep of the horses ; but it yields no clear profit. The 
 live-stock that are reared on the commons are dwarfed and under- 
 sized ; they are driven long distances to and fro, so that they have 
 neither rest nor quiet. Colts, raised on the commons, by cold and 
 famine come to no good. " Cattle, nurtured there, grow to such 
 brockish and starved stature " that, Uving, they grieve the owner's 
 eye, and, dead, deceive the Commonwealth. Sheep do better ; but 
 they even are so pinched that they make little profit. One sheep 
 in an enclosiu-e is worth two on a common. There are five rots in 
 the open-fields to one rot in enclosed land. The commons are 
 over-stocked. They are, says Moore, " Pest-houses of disease for 
 cattle. Hither come the Poor, the Blinde, Lame, Tired, Scabbed, 
 Mangie, Rotten, Murrainous." No order is kept ; but milch cows, 
 young beasts, sheep, horses, swine — often uuringed — and geese are 
 turned out together. Furze and heath are encouraged by com- 
 moners, because they keep cattle and sheep alive in hard winter 
 when fodder is scarce ; but the same space covered with grass 
 would be more useful. That which is every man's is no man's, 
 and no one tries to better the commons. When it is everybody's 
 interest to improve the pasture, it is nobody's business to do the 
 work. 
 
 The whole subject of enclosures had yet to be fought out. From 
 the point of view of production, the change was desirable ; no 
 pressure of population as yet made it necessary. Commons were 
 essential to the existence of those open-field farms, which advocates 
 of agricultural improvement recognised as an obstacle to pro- 
 gress ; but new methods and new resources had as yet hardly 
 advanced beyond theories. Neither the argument from increased 
 
ALTERED TONE RESPECTING ENCLOSURES 129 
 
 productiveness, nor the appeal for progress, had gained their full 
 force. Yet the altered tone of agricultural writers is significant. 
 It was almost as incontestably in favour of enclosure as the tone 
 of Elizabethan writers had been opposed to the process. Generalisa- 
 tion from handfuls of particular instances is always easy. A 
 large tract of country might have been improved and enclosed with 
 the approval of all parties. But there were the widest differences 
 between commons, or between commons and moors, wastes, and 
 bogs. Moore himself reserves his bitterest condemnation for what 
 he calls " marish," as opposed to " uplandish," commons. Stress 
 might be laid on the moral influences of common land either way, 
 and self-interest or bias is always prone to conceal itself under the 
 mask of moral motives. The same rights might encourage industry 
 and thrift, or idleness and crime. It was doubtless illogical to argue 
 that enclosures must always depopulate, whether the change was 
 effected with or without regard to the claims of cottagers and small 
 commoners, or for the purpose of incres/Sing the area either of 
 tillage or of pasture. Yet those who had suffered from enclosures 
 were not unjustified in the conclusion that history would repeat 
 itself. Whichever way the question was ultimately decided, it 
 could not fail to affect the condition of the rural population for 
 better or for worse, and to affect it profoundly. Unfortunately 
 the decision was made, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 
 under an economic pressure which completely overrode the social 
 considerations that should have controlled and modified the process 
 of enclosure. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION. 
 1660-1700. 
 
 WarUdge'a Syatema Agrieultwrae (1669) : improvements suggested by agri- 
 cultural writers ; tyranny of custom ; contempt for book-farming ; slow 
 progress in fanning skill ; general standard low ; horses, cattle, sheep, 
 and pigs in the seventeenth century ; want of leaders ; growing influence 
 of landowners ; the finance of the Restoration, and the abolition of 
 military tenures ; legislation to promote agriculture ; Gregory King on 
 the State and Gondition of England and Wales ia 1696 : the distribution 
 of population and wealth. 
 
 The practical improvements, which had been suggested by " Rustick 
 Authors " in the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, were 
 collected by John Worlidge in his Syatema AgrieuUurae (1669). 
 Five editions of this " first systematic treatise on farming " show 
 that it was for some time regarded as a standard authority. Free 
 from the extravagant promises of his predecessors, Worlidge sum- 
 marises their most useful recommendations. Inordinate space is 
 still allotted to such topics as trees, orchards, "garden tyllage," 
 bees, and silkworms, which occupy 106 pages out of a total nimiber 
 of 217. On the side of stock-breeding and stock-rearing his book 
 remains especially defective. For information on this subject he 
 merely refers readers in a general way to other writers. Three 
 pages only are devoted to the section " Of Beaats," in which the 
 special qualities required for the difierent uses of horses, cattle, 
 and sheep are wholly ignored ; only in the case of dogs does Wor- 
 lidge appear to recognise the variety of purposes for which animals 
 are bred. 
 
 Even the most practical work on farming which was published 
 in the seventeenth century is ill-balanced and defective. Yet it 
 is remarkable how many of the triumphs of nineteenth century 
 farming were anticipated by these early writers, a century and a 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL ADVANCE 131 
 
 half before the improvements were generally adopted. Already 
 the germs of a proper rotation of crops had been implanted, and a 
 few advanced husbandmen, familiar with the methods of the Low 
 Countries, had realised that, in roots and clovers, they commanded 
 the means, not only of keeping more stock, but of increasing the 
 yield of com. Already some of the drawbacks of broad-cast 
 sowing had been pointed out, and the advantages of setting in 
 regular rows suggested. Already the foreign use of oU-cake for 
 cattle had been observed and recommended to English farmers. 
 But, as Mortimer ^ notices, Lincolnshire farmers, after pressing out 
 the " oyl " from their coleseed, preferred to " bum the cakes to 
 heat their Ovens." Already also the field-cultivation of potatoes 
 had been suggested, and it is a coincidence that the suggestion was 
 made only a few years after the drainage of those fens, on the clover- 
 sick soil of which, two centuries and a half later, the adoption of 
 the crop worked a revolution. Already the use of silos and of 
 ensilage, the storage of water in tanks for dry districts, the value 
 of coverings to rick-stands, even the utility of the incubator for 
 rearing poultry — a box heated by a candle or a lamp — ^had been 
 urged on Stewart agriculturists. In a tentative fashion the " Rus- 
 tick Authors " were feeling after improved agricultural machinery. 
 Googe's reaping car, the double-furrow plough of the " ingenious 
 yeoman of Kent," Plattes' com-setter, the com drill depicted by 
 Worhdge, which made the furrow, sowed the seed, and deposited 
 the manure, were the ancestors of many useful inventions. Still 
 more vaguely Stewart writers were looking for the aid of science. 
 Its future benefits could not, of course, be foreseen. But the 
 demand for an Agricultural College, the recognition of the work 
 of the Royal Society, the study of such books as Willis' Defermmtor 
 tione or Glauber's Miracidum Mundi, in which an attempt was 
 made to analyse the elements that contribute to vegetation, show 
 that expectations had been aroused. Already a Land Registry, 
 by which land could be made to pass as freely as money, had been 
 suggested by Andrew Yarranton. Already also the aboUtion of 
 " slavish customs," and of " lU Tenures as Copyhold, Knight- 
 Service etc," which " much discourage Improvements and are (as 
 I suppose) Badges of our Norman Slavery " was demanded. The 
 Hares and Rabbits legislation had been foreshadowed in the out- 
 
 I The whole Art of Hiubcmdry ; or the Way of Managing and Improving of 
 Land (1707). 
 
132 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 cry against the destraction of growing crops by " coneys," and 
 hares which in 1696, according to Gregory King's minute calcula- 
 tion, numbered 24,000. The necessity for General Highway and 
 Enclosure Acts had been ui^ed on the country. The prelude to 
 the long struggle for compensation for unexhausted improvements 
 had been sounded. Even the twentieth century agitation for piue 
 bread had been anticipated in the protest that " the corruption of 
 the best aliments, as bread, and which are in most use with us, 
 causeth the worst Epidemical! Diseases." 
 
 Here and there some changes in farming practices had been made 
 for the better. But such progress was purely local, and rarely 
 survived the individual by whom it was effected. Traditional 
 methods were jealously guarded as agricultural heirlooms. Even 
 ocular proof of the superior advantages derived from improvements 
 failed to drive the John Trot geniuses of farmiag from the beaten 
 track in which their ancestors had plodded. Circumstances com- 
 bined to render the force of custom tyrannical. The agrarian 
 partnerships on village farms opposed a natural obstacle to change. 
 On open-fields, where the rotations of crops were fixed by imme- 
 morial usage, based on the common rights of the whole body of 
 associated farmers, no individual could move hand or foot to effect 
 improvements. Unless a large number of joint occupiers, often 
 ignorant, suspicious, and prejudiced, agreed to forgo common 
 rights and adopt turnips and clover, it was impossible to introduce 
 their cultivation. The enterprise of twenty farmers might be 
 checked by the apathy or caution of one. It was for this reason 
 mainly that Worlidge addresses his treatise to the " gentry and 
 yeomanry," and that he thinks the moment opportune for improve- 
 ment, because so many farmers had been obliged to give up their 
 holdings owing to " the great Plenty and Smallness of Value of the 
 Orivnary Prodiu^ions of the Earth," which left no profit to those 
 who " exercised onely the Vulgar Methods of Agricviture." Even 
 if the new materials for agricultural wealth were successfully intro- 
 duced by some energetic landlord or tenant on an enclosed farm, 
 the result of the experiment was rarely known beyond the im- 
 mediate neighbourhood. Each village was at once isolated and 
 self-sufficing. Communication was difficult ; frequented roads 
 were often impassable except for a well-mounted horseman or a 
 coach drawn by eight horses. Education had not spread to the 
 class to which farmers generally belonged. Letters were rarely 
 
ISOLATION OF VILLAGES 133 
 
 interchanged. Visits were seldom paid. The only form in which 
 information could be disseminated was in books or pamphlets, and 
 in remote villages buyers were few or none. Newspapers had 
 hardly begun to exist. The first attempt to found a scientific 
 agricultural paper was made by John Houghton, whose Collection 
 of Letters for ihe Imprvoement of Husbandry and Trade appeared 
 in a weekly series from 1681 to 1683, and again from 1692 
 to 1703. It is improbable that the circulation could have been 
 extensive even among the wealthiest of the country gentry. 
 Rumours of the progress of the outside world scarcely penetrated 
 to distant villages. Farmers of one district knew Httle more of 
 the practices of the next than they did of those of Kamchatka. 
 Beyond the limited range of their horizon, their neighbours were 
 only 
 
 " Anthropophagi, and mea whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders." 
 
 In this extreme isolation must be sought a fruitful cause for the 
 slow diffusion of agricultural improvements. Another cause lay 
 in the absence of any strong incentive to raise more produce from 
 the soil than was requisite for the immediate wants of the producers. 
 Markets were, in many parts of England, not only difficult of access 
 but few in number. From vast and crowded haunts of labour 
 and trade the cry of the artisan had not yet arisen for bread and 
 meat. As soon as the farmer had satisfied the needs of himself, 
 his family, and his rent, his work was done. TiU a wider demand 
 for agricultural produce had been created by the rapid growth of 
 population which resulted from the development of manufacturing 
 industries, and till the new markets had been brought to the 
 farmer's door by improved means of communication, the supply 
 was mainly regulated by the wants of the producer himself. 
 
 Another cause for the neglect of improvements has been already 
 mentioned. A contempt for book-farmers, which was not wholly 
 unjustifiable, partially explains the slow adoption of new methods 
 and new crops. Of this class of agricultural writers, Thomas 
 Tryon affords an interesting example. Like most men of his kind, 
 he was a " Jack of aU trades:" He was a voluminous writer on a 
 miscellaneous variety of subjects — against drinking brandy and 
 " smoaking tobacco," upon brewing ale and beer, upon medical 
 topics, upon dreams and visions, on the benefit of clean beds, on 
 the generation of bugs, on the pain in the teeth. He also com- 
 
134 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 posed a " short discourse " of a Pythagorean and a mystic. His 
 agricultural book, The Cowalryman'a Companion (1681), is chiefly 
 noticeable for its account of that " Monsterous, Mortifying Dis- 
 temper, the Rot," and for the strange remedies which he suggests 
 for the preservation of sheep from that disorder. Thomas Tryon 
 is an admirable representative of the class of writers who brought 
 the book-farmer into disrepute. But abeady true science was 
 coming to the aid of agriculture. The Sylva (1664) and Terra (1676) 
 of John Evelyn are known to all well-read agriculturists, and John 
 Ray's Catalogvs Phmtarum Anglian (1670) marks an epoch in the 
 history of botanical science. 
 
 All these conditions combined to raise formidable obstacles to 
 the diffusion of improvements in farming. Agricultural writers 
 scarcely expected that the changes they suggested would be adopted. 
 Donaldson, for instance, says that people will probably answer him 
 with " Away with your fool Notions ; there are too many Bees in 
 your Bonet-case. We will satisfie ourselves with such Measures as 
 our Fathers have followed hitherto." Farmers, says HartUb's 
 Legacie, did not venture to attempt innovations lest they should 
 be called " projectors." Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, 
 complains in his Complete Body of Husbandry (1727), that if he were 
 to advise farmers " about improvements, they will ask me whether 
 I can hold a plough, for in that they think the whole mystery of 
 husbandry consists." It was long before clover emerged " from the 
 fields of gentlemen into common use " ; it did not penetrate into 
 Suffolk villages till the eighteenth century. In Worcestershire 
 and adjoining districts the personal efforts of Andrew Yarranton 
 m 1653-77 had for the time established its use. But " farmers," 
 says Jethro Tull, writing in the reign of George 11., " if advised to 
 sow clover would certainly reply, ' Gentlemen might sow it if they 
 pleased, but they (the farmers) must take care to pay their rents.' " 
 Even more obstinate was the resistance to turnips. It was of little 
 use^that WorUdge in his Systema (1669) urged upon farmers the 
 cultivation of roots ; or that Reeve (1670) reprinted Weston's advice 
 to use turnips as the best methods of improving " barren and heathy 
 land " ; or that Houghton (1684) described the benefits which had 
 resulted in Norfolk and Essex from growing them as winter food 
 for sheep. Even their advocates had not yet appreciated the full 
 value of roots. Worlidge ^ in 1683 had observed that " sheep fatten 
 
 1 Houghton's CoUectione on Butbcmdry and Trade (ed. 1728), vol. iv. p. 142. 
 
SLOW ACCEPTANCE OF NEW CROPS 135 
 
 very well on turnips, which prove an excellent nourishment for 
 them in hard winters, when fodder is scarce ; for they will not only 
 eat the greens, but feed on the roots in the ground, and scoop them 
 hollow even to the very skin." Houghton ^ in 1694 writes that 
 " Some in Essex have their fallow after tumeps, which feed their 
 sheep in winter, by which means their tumeps are scooped, and so 
 made capable to hold dews and rain water which, by corrupting, 
 imbibes the nitre of the air, and when the shell breaks, it runs about 
 and fertilizes. By feeding the sheep, the land is dung'd as if it 
 had been folded ; and these tumeps, tho' few or none be carried 
 ofE for human use, are a very excellent improvement ; nay, some 
 reckon it so, tho' they only plough the tumeps in, without 
 feeding." They made but slow progress. Sir John Cullum, in his 
 History of the Manor o/ Hawsted, preserves the name of Michael 
 Houghton as the first man in that Suffolk parish, who about 1700 
 raised a crop of turnips on two acres of his laud. " I introduced 
 turnips into the field," says Tull, " in King William's reign ; but 
 the practice did not travel beyond the hedges of my estate till after 
 the Peace of Utrecht " (1713). Potatoes were even less successful. 
 John Forster (1664) had, as has been already noticed, urged their 
 adoption as a field crop. Houghton notices that they had been 
 brought from Ireland " to Lancashire, where they are very numerous, 
 and now they begin to spread all the Kingdom over. They are a 
 pleasant food boiled or roasted, and eaten with butter and sugar." ^ 
 But Mortimer (Whole Art of Husbandry, etc., 1707) despised them 
 even in the garden as " very near the Nature of- the Jerusalem 
 ArUchoak, which is not so good or wholesome. These are planted 
 either of the Boots or Seeds, and may probably be propagated in 
 great Quantities, and prove a good food for Swine." Neither 
 clover nor turnips became general in England before the latter 
 half of the eighteenth century, and potatoes were not extensively 
 grown till fifty years later, when their value was urged on the 
 country by the Board of Agriculture. 
 
 The widest differences existed between the fanning of various 
 districts. The general level was extremely low. But in individual 
 cases a high standard was attained, and the best possible use made 
 of such resources as agriculturists could command. In natural 
 fertility the Vale of Taunton, which Norden calls the " Paradise of 
 England," was pre-eminent. The best pastures, according to the 
 ' Ibid. vol. i. p. 213. * Oolleciions, etc. vol. ii. p. 469. 
 
136 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 same authority, were at Crediton and Welshpool. In arable 
 farming, says Mascall, or his editor, Ruscam, the seasons for the 
 operations of agriculture, as well as the choice of implements must 
 depend on the character of the soil. Thus on the " stifEe clayes of 
 Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshvre," on " mist soils 
 that are good and fruitful, as Northamptonshire, Ha/rtfordshire, most 
 parts of Kent, Essex, Barkshire," on " light and dry grounds which 
 have also a certain natural fruitfulness in them as in Norfolk, 
 Suffolk, most parts of Lincolnshire, Hampshire and Surrey " — 
 farmers will adapt themselves to circumstances. On " the barren 
 and unfruitful earths, as in Devonshire, Cornwall, many parts of 
 Wales, Darbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire," they must 
 profit by experience. " The best com land in Europe," in the 
 opinion of Gabriel Plattes, was the Vale of Belvoir. The best 
 cheeses were made at Banbury, in Cheshire, or in the Ghedder 
 district. But the latter, says Hartlib's Legacie, were " seldom 
 seen but at Noblemans tables or rich Vintners Sellars." In some 
 places the new crops recommended by the Stewart writers had 
 been tried. Liquorice was grown with success at Pontefract in 
 Yorkshire and at " Godliman " in Surrey ; saffron was established 
 in Essex and Cambridgeshire ; canary seed and caraways were 
 tried in Kent and Oxfordshire ; hops were not confined to Kent, 
 but had spread into Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, and other counties ; 
 sainfoin had been tested at Cobham in Kent ; weld, used for dyeing 
 of " bright Yellows and limon-colours," flourished near Canter- 
 bury ; madder and woad had been proved to be profitable crops ; 
 the best flax and hemp ^ were grown near Maidstone, where a 
 thread factory had been recently established, at Bow and Stratford 
 in Essex, and in Nottinghamshire. At a later date the district 
 round Beccles in Suffolk was famous for its hemp ; rape and cole- 
 seed were established in Kent, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere. Kent, 
 Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and the neighbour- 
 hood of London were famous for their apples, and as many as 200 
 varieties were collected in a single orchard. The cherries of Kent 
 and the quinces of Essex were in chief repute. " There are now," 
 writes William Hughes,* " in Kent and other places of this Nation, 
 
 ^England's Invprovemeta, and "Seasonable Advice, etc. (London, 1691) is 
 an anonymous treatise on the growth of hemp and flax. 
 
 « Tfie Oompleat Vineyard, by William Hughes, 1666. A second and enlarged 
 edition appeared in 1670, and The Flower Garden and Compleat Vineyard 
 in 1683. 
 
HORSES AND CATTLE 137 
 
 such Vineyards and Wall-vines as produce great store of excellent 
 good wine." 
 
 Increased attention was also being paid to live-stock, and the 
 values of distinctive breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs were 
 discussed. If Gervase Markham's Chea/pe and good Husbandry 
 (edition of 1631) is compared with Mortimer's Whole Art of 
 Hvsbandry (1707), some idea may be formed of the views of the 
 seventeenth century on stock-breeding. 
 
 On horses, Markham, in spite of the criticism of Child already 
 quoted, was reputed an authority. " Now for the choyse of the 
 best Horse," he writes, " it is divers according to the use for which 
 you will imploy him." Of " Horses for the Warre," he says, " the 
 courser of Naples is accounted the best, the Almaine, the Sardinian, 
 or the French." " For a Prince's Seat, any supreame Magistrate, 
 or for any great Lady of state," he recommends a " milkewhite " or 
 " faire dapple gray " steed of English breed : failing that, a 
 " Hungarian, SwetMand, Poland, or Irish " horse. The best hunter 
 he finds in " the English horse, bastardized with any of the former 
 Races first spoake of." The finest race-horses are " the Arabian, 
 Barbary, or his bastard-Jennets, but the Turkes are better." 
 " For travaUe or burthen " the best is the Ei^lish horse, and " the 
 best for ease is the Irish-hobby." " For portage, that is for the 
 Packe or Hampers," and " for the Cart or Plough," he makes no 
 selection. For coach horses, he chooses the large English gelding, 
 or the Flemish mare, or the Flemish or Frisian horse. There were 
 doubtless already distinctive breeds in England, such as the York- 
 shire saddle-horses of the Cleveland district, the heavy Black Horse 
 of the Midlands, the Suffolk Punch, or the West-coimtry pack- 
 horse ; but they are not mentioned by Markham. Nor does Mor- 
 timer refer to any English breeds. He tells us, however, that 
 Leicestershire was in his day one of the great horse-breeding counties, 
 and that Hertfordshire farmers bought the colts as two-year-olds, 
 and sold them " at about six Years old to Gentlemen at London 
 for their Coaches." 
 
 Among cattle, the best breeds " for meat " were the long-homed 
 cattle of Yorkshire, Derbjrshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire. The 
 tall long-l^ged Lincolns, generally " pide," with more white than 
 any other colour, were reckoned the best for " labour and draught." 
 " Those in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire are generally of a 
 blood-red colour, in all shapes like unto those in Lincolne-shire> 
 
138 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and fittest for their uses." So fax Markham. Mortimer adds 
 other breeds. "A good hardy Sort for fatting on barren or 
 middling Sort of Land are your Angleaeya and Welch. The hardiest 
 are the Scotch." The best breed for milking, in his opinion, was 
 " the longlegged short-hom'd Cow of the Dutch breed," chiefly 
 found in Lincolnshire and Kent. 
 
 Both Markham and Mortimer have much to say about sheep, which 
 were reckoned as the most profitable of Hve-stock. Their manifold 
 uses inspired Leonard Mascall ''■ to rhyme in " praise of sheep " : 
 
 " These cattle (sheep) among the rest, 
 Is counted for man one of the best, 
 No harmful beast, nor hurt at all ; 
 His fleece of wool doth doath us all. 
 Which keeps us all from eztream cold ; 
 His flesh doth feed both young and old : 
 His tallow makes the candles white, 
 To bum cmd serve us day and night : 
 His skin doth pleasure divers ways. 
 To write, to wear, at all assaies ; 
 His guts, thereof we make wheel-strings ; 
 They use his bones for other things ; 
 His horns some shepherds will not lose. 
 Because therewith they patch their shooes ; 
 His dung is chief, I understand. 
 To help and dung the Plowman's land ; 
 Therefore the Sheep among the rest. 
 He is for man a worthy beast." 
 
 But Mascall makes no attempt to distinguish varieties of breed. 
 Like many of the Stewart writers, he would probably have answered 
 as the Cumberland shepherd replied to the question — ^where he 
 got his rough-legged, ill-formed sheep—" Lor', sir, they are sik as 
 God set upon the land ; we never change any." Markham, how- 
 ever, distinguishes the various breeds by the quality of their wool. 
 The finest short wool came from the small black-faced Hereford- 
 shire sheep in the neighbourhood of Leominster, and in parts of 
 Worcestershire and Shropshire. The Cotswold breed was heavier, 
 but the wool was longer and straighter in the staple, and the fleece 
 coarser. Parts of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, " all Leicester- 
 shire, Buckinghamshire, and part of Northamptonshire, and that 
 part of Nottinghamshire which is exempt from Shenoood Forest " 
 produced " a large-boned Sheep, of the best shape and deepest 
 
 1 Mascedl's book on the Oovemment of CatteU, originally published in 1691, 
 was still in circulation nearly a century later, under the title of The Oounlrey- 
 man's Jewel. The edition of 1680 is said to be " Gathered at first by Leonard 
 Mascal, but much Inlarged by Richard Ruseam, Gent." 
 
SHEEP AND PIGS 139 
 
 staple." These were pasture sheep, and th«r wool was coarse in 
 qnaJity. The Yorkshire breed was " of reasonable bigge bone, but 
 of a staple rough and hairie." Welsh sheep were to be " praised 
 only in the dish, for they are the sweetest mutton." The Lincohi- 
 shire salt marshes bore the largest animals ; but " their legges and 
 beUies axe long and naked, and their staple is coarser than any 
 other." Mortimer practically repeats Markham's list. But he adds 
 one significant remark. Speaking of Lincolns and the coarseness 
 of their wool, he says : " they are lately much amended in their 
 Breed." Some local pioneer of Bakewell and his Leicesters was 
 already attempting the improvement of Lincolns. Both Markham 
 and Mortimer condemn homed sheep, and advise buyers to choose 
 animals with plenty of bone. Both also repeat the warning of Eitz- 
 herbert and Tusser that on open-field farms lambs must be timed to 
 fall in January. 
 
 Pigs naturally take a prominent place in the books of " Bustick 
 Authors." They are, says Markham, " troublesome, noysome, 
 unruly, and great ravenours," yet they are " the Hushandmans 
 Best Scavenger, and the Huswifea most wholesome sinke," and, " in 
 the dish, so lovely and so wholesome, that all other faults may be 
 borne with." MascaU quotes as a proverb the common saying : 
 " The hog is never good but when he is in the dish." The natural 
 cleanliness of the animal is strongly urged by all the seventeenth 
 century writers. As to breed, no English county could be said to 
 have a better sort than any other. But Markham thinks the best 
 pigs are raised in Leicestershire, some parts of Northamptonshire, 
 and the clay countries borderii^ on Leicestershire. As to colour, he 
 recommends white or " sanded," or black. But these last are said 
 to be rare. Pied pigs he considers to be more subject to measles. 
 Both he and Mortimer attribute the superiority of Leicestershire 
 and the surrounding districts to the great quantities of beans 
 and pulse which were raised in those counties, and Mortimer Euids 
 that the pigs from those parts of the country were mostly sold in 
 London for use at sea. 
 
 At the Bicstoration, the greatest need of English farming was 
 the leadership of practical men, possessed of the leisure, the educa- 
 tion, and the capital, to test by experiments the value of a mass 
 of theoretical advice, to adopt new crops, introduce new methods, 
 improve the live-stock of the country. Such pioneers were found, 
 at a later date, among the large landowners. In 1660 they were 
 
140 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 not forthcoming from that or from any other class, and this want 
 of leadership to a great extent explains the reluctance of farmers 
 to put in practice many of the improvements which not only book- 
 farmers but practical agriculturists were recommending. The state 
 of society was stiU too unsettled, the title to land too insecure, to 
 tempt expenditure. The number of men who could afford the 
 necessary outlay was relatively few. Landed property in 1660 was 
 distributed in smaller quantities among more numerous owners 
 than it was a century later. The events of the Commonwealth 
 period had further increased this wide distribution of ownership. 
 Large quantities of land, confiscated by the Parliament, had been 
 thrown on the market. Many estates had also been forfeited to 
 the Government and sold, often in small parcels, because the 
 royalist owners either refused or neglected to compound for their 
 " delinquencies." Portions of other properties had been sold by 
 their owners to pay the composition or the Decimation Tax. In 
 all these cases, numbers of the purchasers were small men. At the 
 Restoration, the estates of the Crown and of the Church, and the 
 confiscated lands of eminent royalists were restored to their original 
 owners, without compensation to purchasers who had bought under 
 the authority of the Commonwealth Government. But no attempt 
 was made to cancel the purchase of lands which had been sold 
 under forfeitures to the ParUament, or under the pressure of the 
 taxation imposed by the victorious Puritans on the vanquished 
 royalists. All claims of this nature were barred by an Act, which 
 disappointed Cavaliers condemned as an act of indemnity to the 
 King's enemies and of obhvion to his friends. But whether the 
 RepubUcans were deprived of their purchases, or confirmed in their 
 possession, the example was not lost on their contemporaries. The 
 nature of the compromise effected at the Restoration necessarily 
 impaired th6 sense of security. When titles were precarious, 
 outlay of capital seemed too speculative a risk. Moreover, many 
 of the royalists who were fortunate enou^ to retaia or regain 
 possession of their estates, found themselves too impoverished to 
 spend money on their improvement, or too formed in their habits 
 to endure the tediousness of directing them. The generations 
 which knew the Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Restoration, 
 the rebellion of Monmouth, and the Revolution bad passed away, 
 before landowners, in widely different circumstances, assumed the 
 lead in agricultural progress. 
 
INCREASED INFLUENCE OP LANDED GENTRY 141 
 
 Changes were already at work which, within the next half centviry, 
 not only restored the position of the landed gentry, but gave them 
 an influence which they had never before possessed. ParUament 
 gained control over the Government, and the House of Commons 
 over Parliament. At the same time the jurisdiction of magistrates 
 was greatly extended. ControUing the House of Commons through 
 the county elections, administering local justice, allied with the 
 Church as the bulwark of Protestantism, recruiting from its 
 wealthiest members the order of the peerage, absorbing into its 
 own ranks their younger sons, the landed gentry became the pre- 
 dominant class in the country. How great was the increase in 
 their power may be illustrated by the difference in the attitude 
 which Elizabethan and Hanoverian Parliaments assumed towards 
 enclosures. Many of the seeds of this growth in the poUtical and 
 social ascendancy of the landed aristocracy were sown during the 
 period under notice. 
 
 One of the first questions which came before the Restoration 
 Parliament was that of finance. Some permanent provision had 
 to be made for the ordinary charges of Government. A Committee 
 was appointed which reported that the average yearly income of 
 Charles I. for the period 1637-41 had been £900,000, but that of 
 this sum £200,000 were derived from sources no longer available. 
 Parliament decided to raise the annual income of the Crown to 
 £1,200,000. In providing this sum the lines laid down by the 
 Republican financiers were in the main followed. The cost of the 
 Civil War and the subsequent expenses of the Commonwealth 
 Government had been met by the old device of customs duties, and 
 by the new expedients of monthly assessments on lands and goods, 
 and of excise duties, borrowed from the Dutch financiers, on a 
 large range of products which at one time included meat and salt. 
 The old feudal dues, exacted by the Crown on all lands held by 
 military tenure, had dwindled in importance and value, in spite of 
 the attempts made by Henry Vlll. and Charles I. to enforce them 
 with greater rigour. To a large extent their place had been taken 
 by parliamentary grants of subsidies on lands and goods. Those 
 which remained in operation were comparatively unproductive ; 
 they were besides uneconomical, imcertain, and inconvenient. They 
 were also not granted by Parhament, and thus provided the Crown 
 with funds which were not under national control. Their abolition 
 had been recommended in the reign of James I. ; it had been 
 
142 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 carried by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament in 1645 ; it 
 was one of the terms of the Treaty of Newport in 1648, when Charles 
 I. agreed to surrender the dues for the payment of £100,000 a year ; 
 it had been demanded by Puritan agriculturists like HartUb and 
 Blith ; finally, in 1656 the abolition had been passed into law with 
 the consent of Cromwell. Technically speaking, the legislation of 
 the Commonwealth was annulled by the Restoration ; practically, 
 however, the question was not whether the abolished dues should 
 be continued, but whether they should be revived. Against this 
 revival it was argued in 1660 that much land had changed hands 
 in the previous fifteen years without any provision for the possible 
 revival of the liability. The income voted for Charles 11. had to 
 be provided, the problem of ways and means to be solved. The 
 Restoration ParUament might have abandoned the excise duty, or 
 revived the feudal dues, or substituted for them a land tax. They 
 retained the excise introduced by Republican financierSj but reduced 
 it by a half ; they confirmed Cromwell's aboUtion of the emolu- 
 ments which the Crown had derived from lands held in chivalry ; * 
 they declined by a majority of two votes to impose a land tax. At 
 the same time the Crown smrendered its oppressive prerogatives 
 of purveyance and pre-emption. No doubt the immediate result 
 of these fiscal changes was that the landed aristocracy continued 
 to be relieved from a burden, and that, from motives of self-interest, 
 they refused to revive, either in its original or in a substituted form, 
 a system of taxation which, before the Commonwealth, had once 
 attached to land held in chivalry. 
 
 The abolition of military tenures reduced to some extent the 
 necessary outgoings of many of the landed gentry. At the same 
 time the commercial policy adopted by the Restoration Grovemment 
 maintained, if it did not swell, their incomes. The steady rise in 
 the price of wool during the past century had begun to hamper the 
 clothing trade. In order to lower prices for home manufacturers, 
 an Act passed in 1647, oad re-eoaoted in 1660, prohibited ita 
 exportation. Still further to stimulate the clothing industry, a 
 series of Acts,* from 1666 onwards, ordered the burial of the dead 
 in woollen fabrics. Partly for revenue, partly in compensation for 
 these concessions to manufacturing industries, partly to meet the 
 claims of impoverished adherents, partly to maintain the balance 
 between pasture and tillage, partly, no doubt, to make England 
 1 12 Cor. n. c. 24. > 18 and 19 Cor. n. c. 4. 
 
REGULATION OF THE CORN TRADE 143 
 
 self-supporting in its food supplies, important changes were made 
 in the laws which regulated the trade in com.'^ In the reign of 
 Philip and Mary, home-grown com could not be exported if home- 
 prices for wheat rose above 6s. 8d. per quarter, and for cheaper 
 grains in proportion. This limit was raised by subsequent legisla- 
 tion. Thus the home price for wheat, at which exportation was 
 prohibited, was raised in 1593 to 20s., in 1604 to 26s. 8d., in 1623 
 to 32s., in 1660 to ^Oa.,^ in 1663 to 483.^ In 1660 duties were also 
 imposed on the importation of foreign wheat. These duties were 
 at first nominal. Thus they started at 2s. per quarter on imported 
 wheat, when home-prices exceeded 44s. In 1663 they were raised 
 to 58. 4d. per quarter, when home-grown wheat rose above 48s. 
 In 1670 * the com laws became more frankly protective. No limit 
 of price was fixed above which the exportation of home-grown com 
 was prohibited, and a heavy duty of 16s. a quarter was imposed 
 on foreign wheat when home prices did not exceed 53s. 4d. per 
 quarter. Similar duties were imposed on the importation of other 
 foreign grain at proportionate prices. A further change was made 
 in 1688.^ The Act of that year offered a bounty on the export 
 of home-grown com of 5s. per quarter of wheat, whenever the 
 home-price fell below 48s. per quarter, and on other grain in pro- 
 portion. On these two principles, namely a duty on the importation 
 of foreign com and a bounty on the exportation of home-grown 
 com, combined with frequent prohibitions of exports, the com 
 trade was regulated Hiroughout the eighteenth century. Similar 
 measures were adopted to encourage the raising of cattle, and 
 importations from Ireland were prohibited. Legislation did not, 
 however, raise prices ; it only succeeded in maintaining them. 
 Increased production at home counteretcted the efEect which the 
 restriction of imports might otherwise have produced. England, 
 says Sir William Petty,* " doeth so abound in Victuals as 
 that it maketh Laws against the Importation of Cattle, Flesh 
 and Fish from abroad ; and that the draining of Fens, im- 
 proving of Forests, inclosing of Commons, Sowing of St. Foyne 
 and Glover-grass be grumbled against by Landlords, as the 
 Way to depress the price of Victuals." Elsewhere he adds : 
 
 I See Appendix m. The Com Laws. ' 12 Car. II. c. 4. 
 » 15 Car. n. o. 7. « 22 Car. U. o. 13. 
 
 e 1 William and Mary, c. 12. 
 *5ei;era2 Easaya in PoUMccU Arithmetic, ed. 175S, pp. 150-169. 
 
144 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " it is manifest that the land in its present Condition is able to 
 bear more Provision and Commodities, than it was forty years 
 ago." 
 
 Throughout the period from the Restoration to the Revolution, 
 except for one disa^strous year of plague, fire, and war, the country 
 prospered. The receipts from customs steadily advanced. Trade 
 was expanding. As Amsterdam decayed, and Portuguese and 
 Spanish Jews fled to England to escape the Liquisition, money 
 flowed into the country. Other religious refugees brought with 
 them useful arts and manufactures. The development of banking 
 stimulated commercial undertakings. Between 1661 and 1687 the 
 receipts from the customs duties more than doubled. Fortunes, 
 made in the city were often invested in land, which now was begin- 
 ning to confer on its possessors a new poUtical and social influence. 
 The landed gentry shared in the growing prosperity, either through 
 its general effects on the country, or by wealthy marriages, or by 
 sending their sons — as Rashleigh Osbaldistone was sent by Sir 
 Hildebrand — ^into business. Between 1675 and 1700, said Sir 
 WiUiam Temple " the first noble famihes married into the City." ^ 
 Latimer had preached against landlords becoming " graziers," and 
 aldermen turning " colliers," and disquietude at this commercial 
 tendency had influenced the legislation of Edward VI. But times 
 had changed. Though Heralds still distinguished between " foreign 
 Merchants " and retail shopkeepers, on the ground apparently that 
 " Navigation was the only laudable part of all buying and selling," 
 yet they ^ had solemnly decided that " if a Gentleman be bound 
 an Apprentice to a Merchant, or other Trade, he hath not thereby 
 lost his Degree of Gentility." 
 
 Closely united with the nobility, the Church, and the merchant 
 princes, sharing in the general prosperity, and, in virtue of their 
 property, exercising new political and social powers, the landed 
 gentry were beginning to acquire that predominant influence which 
 was so marked a feature in the eighteenth century. The change 
 necessarily added an artificial value to the ownership of land : it 
 not only arrested the tendency towards its wider distribution, but 
 encouraged its accumulation in fewer hands. Once acquired, 
 estates were held together by the introduction of family settle- 
 
 ' Quoted by Toynbee, Indu»trM Revolution, ed. 1887, p. 63. 
 
 ' Logan's Treatise of Honor at the end of Gwillim's Display of Heraldry 
 (ed. 1679), p. 155. 
 
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS IN 1696 146 
 
 ments. On the eve of this change, it may be of interest to 
 note a contemporary estimate of the agricultural population 
 and wealth of the country at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. -_ 
 
 Gregory King, whose training and experience specially qualified 
 him for the task, drew up a statistical accoimt of the " State and 
 Condition " of England and Wales in 1696. His estimates of the 
 actual numbers of the population are the result of an investigation 
 by a competent and careful observer, who made the fuUest use of 
 the information supplied by such figures as those contained in the 
 Hearth-office, the assessments on Births, Marriages, and Burials, 
 the Parish Registers, and Public Accounts. The substantial 
 accuracy of this part of his work has stood the test of subsequent 
 criticism, in spite of his prophecy that in 1900 the population 
 would have risen to 7,350,000. For the rest of his estimates he 
 mainly depended on guess-work. Confidence is scarcely created by 
 his laborious calculation of the numbers of hares, rabbits, and 
 wild fowl in the country. King's figures were largely used by 
 Davenant,'^ but his actual maxiuscript remained unpublished tall 
 1801 .« 
 
 King estimated the total acreage of England and Wales at 39 
 million ^ acres ; of which 11 million acres were arable, averaging 
 a yearly rent per acre of 5s. lOd. ; and 10 million were meadow or 
 pasture, averaging 9s. an acre. Of the 11 million arable acres, ten 
 million were imder the plough for com, pease, beans, and vetches ; 
 one million acres were allotted to flax, hemp, safiron, woad and 
 other dyeing weeds, etc. He goes on to calculate the live-stock of 
 the country thus : " horses (and asses)," 600,000 ; cattle, 4| million ; 
 sheep, 11 million ; pigs, 2 million. The total population in 1696 
 is estimated at 5,500,000 persons, distributed into 1,400,000 urban, 
 and 4,100,000 rural, inhabitants. The total yearly income of the 
 nation in 1688 is calculated at £43,500,000. Of this total, con- 
 
 ' An Essay upon the Probable Methods of making a People Oainers in 
 the BaUance of Trade, by Caiarles Davenant, 1698 (Section I. "Of the 
 People of England," and Section II. " Of the Land of England and its 
 Product "). 
 
 * Published in An Estimate of the Convparative Strength of Oreat Britain, by 
 George Chalmers (1802), under the title of " Natural and Political ObsOTva- 
 tions and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696 ; by 
 Gregory King, Esq., Lancaster Herald." 
 
 > The actual figure is 37,319,221 acres. 
 
 K 
 
146 LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 siderably more than half (£24,480,000) belonged to the followii^ 
 families : 
 
 Yearly Income. 
 40,000 Freeholders 1 of the better sort £84 
 
 140,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort - - 50 
 150,000 Fanners - - - 44 
 
 364,000 Labouring People and Out-servants - 16 
 400,000 Cottagers and Paupers - 6 10 0^ 
 
 King's estimates bring into strong relief the vast revolution 
 which the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced in the dis- 
 tribution of population and of wealth. The same point is illustrated 
 from a difierent point of view by a comparison of the wealth of the 
 different counties in 1696 and at the present day. Material for 
 such a comparison is found in the frequent assessments which were 
 made of the counties during the seventeenth century for various 
 fiscal purposes. The central counties are the richest ; then follow 
 in order of wealth the south, the east, the west. Poorest of all is 
 the north. Throughout the whole period, Middlesex is the richest 
 and Cumberland the poorest county. The most conspicuous change 
 was that of Surrey, which rose from the eighteenth place in 1636 to 
 the second in 1693. Excluding Middlesex, and excepting Surrey, 
 the wealthiest district throughout the whole period was formed by 
 a block of six agricultural counties north of the Thames — ^namely 
 Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxford- 
 shire, and Northamptonshire. Their position illustrates the im- 
 portance of London as a market for agricultural produce. Already 
 its rapid growth was exciting alarm, lest " the Head " should become 
 " too big for the Body." According to Gregory King, its popula- 
 tion was 530,000 souls out of an urban population of 1,400,000, and 
 a total population, urban and rural, of 6| millions. Throughout 
 the whole period, again, the seven poorest counties, though their 
 order in the list varies, were Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, 
 Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham, and Cumberland. The 
 assessment of the whole district north of the Humber, comprising 
 one-fifth of the total area of England, was not greater than that of 
 
 ' It should be noted that freeholders included not only owners emd occupy- 
 ing owners, but tenants for life and lives, ae well as copyholders. 
 
 * For tables of estimates drawn up by King and Davenant, see Appendix 
 IV. 
 
POVERTY OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND 147 
 
 Wiltshire. In the latter half of the following century not only 
 wealth bnt popnlation migrated northwards, and the inhabitants 
 of rural districts began to flow into the centres of trade and manu- 
 facture which crowded round the coal and iron fields and water- 
 power of the northern counties. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 1700-1760. 
 
 Agricultural piogiess in the eighteenth century ; enclosures necessary to 
 advance ; advocates and opponents of the enclosing movement ; area 
 of uncultivated land and of land cultivated in open-fields ; defects of the 
 open-field system as a method of farming ; pasture commons as adjuncts 
 to open-field holdings ; the necessary lead in agricultural progress given 
 by large landoimers and large formers ; procedure in enclosures by Act 
 of Parliament : varying dates at which districts have been enclosed : 
 influence of soil and climate in breaking up or maintaining the open-field 
 system : the East Midland and North Eastern group of counties : improved 
 methods and increased resources of farming ; Jethro Tull the " greatest 
 individual improver " ; Lord Townshend's influence on Norfolk husbandry. 
 
 The gigantic advance of agriculture in the nineteenth century 
 dwarfs into insignificance any previous rate of progress. Yet the 
 change between 1700 and 1800 was astonishing. England not only 
 produced food for a population that had doubled itself, as well as 
 grain for treble the number of horses, but dining the first part of 
 the period became, as M. de Lavergne has said, the granary of 
 Europe. Population before 1760 grew so slowly that the soil, 
 without any great increase in farming skill or in cultivated area, 
 produced a surplus. Under the spur of the bounty, land which had 
 been converted to pasture was again ploughed for com, and proved 
 by its yield that it had profited by the prolonged rest. The price 
 of wheat, between the years 1713 and 1764, in spite of large exports, 
 averaged 34s. lid. per quarter ; poor-rates fell below the level of 
 the precediog century ; real wages were higher than they had been 
 since the reign of Henry VI. In England, at least, there was little 
 civil war or tumult, no glut of the labour market, no sudden growth 
 of an artisan class. The standard of living improved. Instead of 
 the salted carcases of half-starved and aged oxen, fresh meat began 
 to be eaten by the peasantry. Wheaten bread ceased to be a luxury 
 of the wealthy, and, at the accession of George III. had become the 
 
THE PEASANTS' GOLDEN AGE 149 
 
 bread-stnff of half the population. Politically and morally, the 
 period was coirapt and coarse ; materially, it was one of the Golden 
 Ages of the peasant. The only drawbacks to the general prosperity 
 of agriculture during the first half of the century were the visita- 
 tions of the rot, and of the cattle plague. Ellis ^ speaks of the rot 
 in 1735 aa " the most general one that has happened in the memory 
 of man . . . the dead bodies of rotten sheep were so numerous in 
 roads, lanes, and fields, that their carrion stench and smell proved 
 extremely offensive to the neighbouring parts and the passant 
 travellers." A newer and more mysterious scourge was the cattle 
 plague. Starting in Bohemia, it travelled westward, devastated 
 the north of France, and three times visited England. The only 
 remedy was to slaughter infected animals ; in a single year the 
 Government, paying one-third of the value, expended £135,000 in 
 compensation. 
 
 The great changes which English agriculture witnessed as the 
 eighteenth century advanced, and particularly after the accession 
 of George m. (1760), are, broadly speaking, identified with Jethro 
 Tull, Lord Townshend, Bakewell of Dishley, Arthur Young, and 
 Coke of Norfolk. With their names are associated the chief 
 characteristics in the farming progress of the period, which may be 
 summed up in the adoption of improved methods of cultivation, 
 the introduction of new crops, the reduction of stock-breeding to 
 a science, the provision of increased facUities of communication and 
 of transport, and the enterprise and outlay of capitalist landlords 
 and tenant-farmers. The improvements which these pioneers 
 initiated, taught, or exemplified, enabled England to meet the 
 strain of the Napoleonic wars, to bear the burden of additional 
 taxation, and to feed the vast centres of commercial industry which 
 sprang up, as if by magic, at a time when food supphes could not 
 have been provided from another country. Without the substitu- 
 tion of separate occupation for the ancient system of common cul- 
 tivation, this agricultural progress was impossible. But in carrying 
 out the necessary changes, rural society was convulsed, and its 
 general conditions revolutionised. The divorce of the peasantry 
 from the soil, and the extinction of commoners, open-field farmers, 
 and eventually of small freeholders, were the heavy price which the 
 natiop ultimately paid for the supply of bread and meat to its 
 manufacturing population. 
 
 1 Bhepherd'a Sure Chude, 1749. 
 
160 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 Neither the reclamation of wastes, nor the break-up of open- 
 field farms, nor the appropriation of commons, were novelties. For 
 the last three centuries the three processes, which are generally 
 spoken of as enclosures, had all been proceeding at varying rates of 
 progress. Sut in the period from 1760 to 1815 each received an 
 immense impetus, partly from the rise in the price of com, partly 
 from the consequent increase in rental values, partly from the 
 pressure of a growing population, partly from the improved standard 
 of agriciilture. The literary struggle in advocacy or condemnation 
 of enclosures still continued. But the advocates were gaining the 
 upper hand. In the first half of the eighteenth century, there are 
 at least two notable contributions to the literature of the subject 
 by champions of enclosures, and only one of any importance by an 
 opponent. 
 
 By the new writers, the unprofitable nature of the use of land 
 under common tillage or common pasture is insisted upon. Thus 
 Timothy Nourse, Oent., in his Campania Fodix ; or Discourse of 
 the Benefits and Im^ovemerUs of Husbandry (1700), vigorously attacks 
 commons as " Seminaries of a lazy Thieving sort of People." In his 
 opinion their live-stock were as unprofitable to the community as 
 the commoners themselves. Their sheep are described as " poor, 
 tatter'd, and poyson'd with the Rot," their cattle " as starv'd. Tod- 
 bellied Runts, neither fit for the Dairy nor the Yoke." So, also, 
 an anonymous author in a short and pithy tract. An Old Almanack 
 {vnth some considerations for improving commons) printed in 1710. 
 With a Postscript (1734-5), suggests that, if the landowner and two- 
 thirds, in number and value, of those interested in an open-field 
 farm and common agreed to an enclosure, their consent should 
 override the opposition of the minority. " Will the Oommumers 
 cornplmn," he asks, " for want of their Commonage ? This they can't 
 do, for few of them have any Cattle, and whether they have or not, 
 there is Recompence out of the Inclosures will more than treble 
 their Loss ? Will the Incumbents complain ? What ! for converting 
 the dry Commons into Com, and the Fenns into Hemp and Flax. 
 WiU the Ingrossers of Commons complain, who eat wp their own Share 
 and others too ? This they dare not. But won't (hose honest Men 
 complain who now live upon the Thefts of Common ? And not with the 
 least Reason, but then there will be Work for them." But the two 
 important advocates of enclosures 'were the brothers John and 
 Edward Laurence. In A New System of Agriculture (1726) a note 
 
JOHN AND EDWARD LAURENCE 151 
 
 is struck which sounded more loudly as toMois grew, as, with their 
 growth, the demand increased for meat, milk, and butter, as agri- 
 culture improved, as communication was facilitated. The author, 
 the Rev. John Laurence, Rector of Bishops Wearmouth, treats 
 open-field farms as obstacles to agricultural progress. He insists 
 on enclosures and separate occupation as the best means of increas- 
 ing produce and of raising rents. He dwells on the rapid progress 
 which enclosures were then making, points out the great rise in 
 rental value consequent on increased produce, and argues that so 
 far from injuring the poor, enclosures will rather create a new demand 
 for labour by the introduction of improved tillage and pasture- 
 farming, wiU give employment in fencing and ditching, and remove 
 the attractions of wastes and open spaces, which " draw to them 
 the poor and necessitous only for the advantage of pilfering and 
 stealing." In The Duty of a Steward to his Lord (1727) Edward 
 Laurence, himself a land-surveyor, and apparently agent to the 
 Duke of Buckingham, argues the case from the point of view of 
 better and more economical management. A new skilled pro- 
 fession was growing up. It is prophetic of future changes that 
 Laurence points out the evils of employing " country- Attomejrs 
 <not skilled in Husbandry) " in the management of landed property, 
 and argues that the gentry should allow handsome salaries to their 
 stewards, who could, if inadequately paid, adopt other means of 
 enriching themselves. A champion of " engrossing," he insists on 
 the advantages of consolidating small holdings in larger farms. He 
 urges stewards to prevent piecemeal enclosures by Individuals, to 
 substitute leaseholds for copyholds, to buy up any freeholds on the 
 estate which he in intermixed strips, as necessary preliminaries to 
 any successful and general scheme for the enclosure of open-fields 
 and commons. The other side to the picture is vigorously painted 
 by John Cowper in his Essay 'proving that Inclosing Commons and 
 Common-Field-Lands is Contrary to the Interest of the Nation (1732). 
 He answers the arguments of the two Laurences, arguing that 
 enclosures necessarily injiue the small freeholder and the poor, and 
 pleading that, so far from encouraging labour, they depopulate the 
 villages in which they have been carried out. Speaking of the 
 small freeholder, he says that " none are more industrious, none 
 toil and labour so hard. ... I myself have seen within these 30 
 years, above 20 Lordships or parishes enclosed, and everyone 
 of them has thereby been in a manner depopulated. If 
 
152 JETHRO TULL AKD LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 any one can shew me where an Inclosure has been made, and 
 not at least half the inhabitants gone, I will throw up the 
 argument." 
 
 In the passages quoted from the&e five books are outlined some 
 of the principal points in the dispute which was fought out in the 
 next eighty years. On the one side are pleaded the pernicious 
 effects of commons on the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and 
 their live-stock ; the absence of any legal title to many of the 
 rights claimed over pasture commons, and their frequent abuse by 
 commoners ; the obstacles to farming improvement which were pre- 
 sented by open arable fields ; the unprofitable use of land occupied 
 in common ; the commercial and productive advantages of enlarged, 
 separate holdings. On the other side is urged the injury which the 
 break-up of open-field farms and the partition of commons infiicted 
 on small owners and occupiers of land. Much was to be said from 
 both points of view. Many sweeping assertions were made, both 
 by advocates and opponents, which were true of one district but 
 untrue of another. Both socially and economically, the reclama- 
 tion of wastes, the extinction of open-field farms, the appropriation 
 of commons, might be justified by the urgent necessity of developing 
 the productiveness of the soil, and of increasing to the fullest extent 
 the food resources of the country. In favour of the first two 
 changes, most agricultural writers are agreed ; in dealing with the 
 commons, it is at least doubtful whether the best possible course 
 was always adopted. 
 
 From the productive point of view, the amount of waste land 
 was a standing reproach to agriculture. The disappearance of the 
 wild boar and the wolf in the reign of Charles 11. suggests some 
 diminution of the area in which those animals had harboured. But 
 in 1696 Gregory King had estimated the heaths, moors, mountains,, 
 and barren lands of England and Wales at ten million acres, or 
 more than a quarter of the total area. In all probability, the 
 estimate is wholly inadequate. But, assuming the calculation to 
 be approximately correct, it affords some measure of comparison 
 with conditions at the close of the eighteenth century. In 1796 
 the Board of Agriculture ^ stated that over 22 million acres in Great. 
 Britain were uncultivated, of which 7,888,977 acres were in England 
 and Wales. Here too there is probably a gross under-estimate. 
 
 * Eeport of the Committee of the Board of Agriculture (1796). The total 
 acreages are over-estimated. 
 
WASTE LANDS IN ENGLAND 155 
 
 Arthur Young,^ twenty years before (1773), had called attention to 
 the extent of land lying waste in Great Britain. " There are," he 
 says, " at least 600,000 acres waste in the single county of Northum- 
 berland. In those of Cumberland and Westmoreland, there are 
 aa many more. In the north and part of the West Biding of York- 
 shire, and the contiguous ones of Lancashire, and in the west part 
 of Durham, are yet greater tracts ; you may draw a line from the 
 north point of Derbyshire to the extremity of Northumberland, of 
 150 nules as the crow flies, which shall be entirely across waste 
 lands : the exception of small cultivated spots very trifling." It 
 was across this district that Jeanie Deans travelled in the days of 
 George n., when great districts of Northumberland were covered 
 with forests of broom, thick and tall enough to hide a Scottish army. 
 Lancashire in 1794 still had 108,500 acres of waste, and Bossendale 
 remained a chace. As late as 1794, three-quarters of Westmoreland, 
 according to Bishop Watson, lay uncultivated. In 1734 the forest 
 of Knaresborough had surrounded Harrogate so thickly that " he 
 was thought a cunning fellow that could readily find out those 
 Spaws." Even in the last decade of the eighteenth century, 
 265,000 acres of Yorkshire were lying waste, yet largely capable 
 of cultivation. Up to the accession of Gteorge HI., that part of the 
 East Biding which was called the Carrs, from Bridlington Quay to 
 Spurn Point, and inland as far as Driffield, was an extensive swamp 
 producing little but the ague ; willow trees marked out the road 
 from Hull to Beverley, and the bells rang at dusk from the tower 
 of Barton-upon-Humber to guide belated travellers. Great tracts 
 of Derbyshire were " black regions of ling." From Sleaford to 
 Brigg, " all that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln Town," was a 
 desolate waste, over which wayfarers were directed by the land 
 lighthouse of Dunstan pillar. No fences were to be seen for miles — 
 only the furze-capped sand-banks which enclosed the warrens. 
 The high ground from Spilsby to Caistor was similarly a bleak 
 unproductive heath. Bobin Hood and Little John might still 
 have sheltered in Sherwood Forest, which occupied a great part of 
 Nottinghamshire. The fen districts of the counties of Cambridge, 
 Huntingdon, Lincoln, and Northampton continued to defy the 
 assaults of drainage. Even in the neighbourhood of London similar 
 
 * ObservatUma on the Present Stale of Waste Lands of Qreat Britain, 1773. 
 Young's calculations are also based on an exaggerated estimate of the acreage 
 of England and Wales. 
 
154 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 conditions prevailed. Nathaniel Kent, writing in 1775 (HintB to 
 Gentlemen of Landed Property), says " that within thirty miles of 
 the capital, there is not less than 200,000 acres of waste land." As 
 late as 1793, Hounslow Heath and Finchley Common were described 
 as wastes, fitted only for " Cherokees and savages." In 1791, the 
 Weald of Surrey still bore evidence of its desolation in the posts 
 which stood across it as " guides to letter-carriers." In Essex, 
 Epping and Hainault Forests were in 1794 " known to be a resort 
 of the most idle and profligate of men ; here the undergraduates in 
 iniquity commence their career with deer stealing, and here the 
 more finished and hardened robber retires from justice." Counties 
 more remote from London had a still larger area of wastes. When 
 Young made his Fanner's Tours in the first decade of the reign 
 of George HI., Sedgmoor was still one vast fen, the Mendip HiUs 
 were uncultivated, and eighteen thousand acres on the Quantock 
 Hills lay desolate. Over Devonshire, Cornwall, and the whole of 
 Wales, stretched, in 1773, " immense " tracts of wastes. To bring 
 some of these wastes into cultivation was part of the work which 
 agriculturists undertook in the eighteenth century, and if the 
 estimates of Gregory ELing (1696) and of the Board of Agriculture 
 (1793) are approximately correct, upwards of two miUion acres 
 were added to the cultivated area before the close of the period. 
 
 It is possible that in 1700 at least half the arable land of the 
 country was still cultivated on the open-field system — ^that is, in 
 village farms by associations of agricultural partners who occupied 
 intermixed strips, and cultivated the whole area under common 
 rules of cropping. Out of 8,600 parishes, which in round numbers 
 existed at the Reformation, 4,500 seem to have been still laid out, 
 in whole or in part, on this ancient method. John Laurence in 
 1726 had calculated that a thirt^ of the cultivated area " is what 
 we call Common Fields." The agricultural defects of the open- 
 field system were obvious and numerous. So long as farming had 
 been unprogressive, and population had remained stationary, the 
 economic loss was comparatively unimportant. When improved 
 methods and increased resources were commanded by farmers, and 
 when the demand for food threatened to outstrip the supply, the 
 need for change became imperative. Under the primitive system, 
 the area under the plough was excessive, and much land, which 
 might have been more profitably employed as pasture, was tilled 
 for com. A quantity of the arable land was wasted in innumerable 
 
SOME DEFECTS OF OPEN-FIEU) FARMS 156 
 
 balks and footpaths. AH the occupiers were bound by rigid cus- 
 tomary rules, compelled to treat all kinds of soil alike, obliged to 
 keep exact time with one another in sowing and reaping their crops. 
 Freeholders on open-field farms were only halfowners. No winter 
 crops could be grown so long as the arable fields were subjected to 
 common rights of pasture from August to February. It meant 
 financial ruin, if any member of the community grew turnips, clover, 
 or artificial grasses for the benefit of his neighbours. The strips of 
 land occupied by each partner were too narrow to admit of cross- 
 ploughing or cross-harrowing, and on heavy land this was a serious 
 drawback. Drainage was practically impossible, for, if one man 
 drained or water-furrowed his land, or scoured his courses, his 
 neighbour might block his outfalls. It was to carry off the water 
 that the arable land was heaped up into high ridges between two 
 furrows. But the remedy was almost as bad as the disease. The 
 richness of the soil was washed off the summit of the ridge into 
 the trenches, which often, as Kent ^ records, contained water three 
 yards wide, dammed back at either end by the high-ridged head- 
 lands. The cultivated fields were generally foul, if not from the 
 fault of the occupier, from the slovenliness of his neighbours ; the 
 tuif-balks harboured twitch ; the triennial fallows left their heritage 
 of crops of docks and thistles. The unsheltered, hedgeless open- 
 fields were often hurtful to live-stock, though the absence of hedges 
 was not without its advantages to the com. The farm-buildings 
 were gathered together in the village, often a mile or more from 
 the land. As each man's strips lay scattered over ea<ih of the open- 
 fields, he wasted his day in visiting the different parcels of his 
 holding, and bis expenses of manuring, reaping, carting, and horse- 
 keeping were enormously increased by the remoteness of the different 
 parts of his occupation. Vexatious rights interfered with proper 
 cultivation. One man might have the right to turn his plough on 
 another's strip, and the victim must either wait his neighbour's 
 pleasure or risk the damage to his sown crops. " Travellers," as 
 Joseph Lee' remarked in 1656, " know no highwaies in the common 
 fields " ; each avoided his predecessor's ruts, and cattle trespassed 
 as they passed. For twenty yards on either side of the track the 
 growing com was often spoiled. The sheep were driven to the 
 commons by day, and in the summer folded at night on the fallows. 
 
 ^ Bints to OenUemen of Lionded Property, by Nathaniel Kent, 1776. 
 ) VindiealUm of a Regulated Endostire, p. 24. 
 
166 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 Otherwise the manure of the hve-stock was wasted over the wide 
 area, which the animals traveraed to find their scanty food. Unable 
 to provide winter keep, and fettered by the common rights of 
 pasture which each of the partners enjoyed over the whole of the 
 arable land, farmers reared lambs and calves under every dis- 
 advantage. During the summer months, when the horses and 
 cattle were tethered on the unsheltered balks, they lost flesh and 
 pined in the heat. Ill-fed all the year round, and half-starved in 
 the winter, the live-stock dwindled in size. The promiscuous 
 herding of sheep and cattle generated every sort of disorder. The 
 common pasture was pimpled with mole-heaps and ant-hills, and, 
 from want of drainage, pitted with wet patches where nothing 
 grew but rushes. The scab was rarely absent from the crowded 
 common-fold, or the rot from the ill-drained plough-land and 
 pasture. No individual owner could attempt to improve his flock 
 or his herd, when all the cattle and sheep of the village grazed 
 together on the same commons. 
 
 The open-field system was proverbially the source of quarrels. 
 Litigation was incessant. It was easy for men to plough up a 
 portion of the common balks or headlands, to shift their neighbour's 
 landmarks, or poach their land, by a turn of the plough, or filch 
 their crops when reaping. Robert Mannyng in his HandJyng Synne. 
 (1303) had condemned the " fals husbandys " that " ere aweye 
 falsly mennys landys," and William Langland iu Piers Plowman 
 (1369) had denounced the ploughman who " pynched on " the 
 adjoining half-acre, and the reapers who reaped their neighbour's 
 ground. Tusser repeats the complaint of the mediaeval moralists 
 against the ' champion ' or open-field farmer : — 
 
 " The Champion robbeth by night, 
 And prowleth and filcheth by day : 
 
 Himself and his beasts out of sight, 
 Both spoileth and maketh away 
 
 Not only thy grass but thy com, 
 Both after and e'er it be shorn." 
 
 Gascoigne in The Steel Glaaae (1576) condemns the open-field fanner 
 
 who 
 
 "... set debate between their lords 
 
 By earing up the balks that part their bounds." 
 
 Joseph Lee repeats the charge. " It is," he says, " a practice too 
 common in the common fields, where men make nothing to pull up 
 their neighbour's landmark, to plow up their land and mow their 
 
THE PASTURE COMMONS 157 
 
 graase that lyeth next to them." For open-field fanners the curse 
 in the Commination Service had a real meaning. Edward Lau- 
 rence ^ (1727) dwells on the temptations to dishonesty which the 
 unfenced lands and precarious boundaries of open-fields offered 
 to the needy, and the same point is repeatedly insisted upon by the 
 Reporters to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the eighteenth 
 century. Hence it was that open-field farmers agreed among 
 themselves as little as " wasp doth with bee." Hence also came 
 the numerous law-suits. " How many brawling contentions," says 
 Lee, " are brought before the Judges every Assizes by the in- 
 habitants of the common fields." 
 
 Speaking generally, enclosure ineant the simultaneous processes 
 of consolidating the intermixed strips of open-field farms and of 
 dividing the commons attached to them as adjuncts of the arable 
 holdings. But this was not universally the case. Sometimes the 
 arable farm had been enclosed, and only the pasture common 
 remained to be divided. Sometimes the reverse was the case ; 
 the common had gone, and only the arable land remained to be 
 enclosed. Sometimes land, previously enclosed by agreement or 
 piecemeal by individuals, was re-enclosed under a general scheme, 
 probably for purposes of redistribution. Sometimes the acreage 
 mentioned in Inclosure Acts, as tested by the awards, is exaggerated, 
 more rarely under-estimated. All these differences make accurate 
 calculations of the actual area affected by the appropriation of 
 pasture-commons and the extinction of open-field farms extremely 
 difficult, if not impossible. Now that the commons as adjuncts 
 of arable farming have greatly contracted in area, their comparative 
 disappearance is deplored on both economic and social grotmds, 
 in accordance with ideas which are of recent growth. It might 
 have been possible to regulate their use to greater profit, or to pre- 
 serve them as open spaces for recreation and as the lungs of large 
 towns, or to divide them on methods which recognised more fuUy 
 the minor rights claimed by small commoners, and would thus 
 have benefited a larger section of the community. But so long as 
 the herbage of the commons, both in legal theory and historical 
 origin, formed an essential part of the arable farm, and was subject 
 to rights claimed against all the world by the privileged occupiers 
 of the tillage land, there were practical difficulties in the way of 
 each of these possible courses. Agriculturists scarcely looked 
 
 ^ Duty of a Steward to his Lord. 
 
158 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 beyond the undrained and impoverished condition of the pastures ; 
 lawyers held that rights of common, claimed apart from the tenure 
 of arable land or ancient cottages, were in the nature of encroach- 
 ments or trespass ; economists condemned their occupation in 
 common as a wasteful and unprofitable use of the land ; social 
 reformers pointed to the attractions which commons possessed for 
 idlers, and deplored their influence on morals and industry. All 
 these classes may have been, consciously or unconsciously, self- 
 interested. There were few, certainly, who realised the full con- 
 sequences of enclosures, or appreciated the strength of the impulse 
 which the enclosing movement woidd give to capitalist farming, 
 and the immediate success of the agricultural change removed the 
 hesitation even of the most far-seeing. 
 
 Custom in the course of centuries had dealt hardly with the 
 commons. Many of them were unstinted, and were consequently 
 overcharged with stock, which often belonged to jobbers and not 
 to the commoners. Even in good seasons, there was barely enough 
 grass to keep the cattle and sheep alive. In bad seasons, when 
 the weather was cold or wet, and the grass late and scanty, many 
 died from want of food. In other cases, while the main body of 
 commoners were restricted in the number of their stock, one or 
 more commoners, not always lords of adjacent manors, were 
 restrained by no limit, and not only turned out as many of their 
 own sheep and cattle as they could, but also took in those of 
 strangers. The poorer the commoner, the less was the benefit he 
 derived. If the commons were stinted, every commoner, who 
 occupied other pasture land in severalty, saved his own grass till 
 the last moment by keeping his sheep and cattle on the common, 
 and the small man, who had no other refuge for his live-stock, was 
 the sufferer. Where the commons, again, were stinted, the richer 
 men frequently turned out more than the custom allowed, and the 
 smaller commoners had lost the protection of the old Courts Baron, 
 where the offenders, before the decay of those tribunals, would have 
 been " presented." Monied men turned stock-jobbers or dealers, 
 hired land at double rents on the edge of the commons, and so 
 obtained grazing rights which they exercised by overstocking the 
 land with their own sheep and cattle or by agisting the live-stock 
 of strangers. It was thus that, in 1793, " an immense nimiber of 
 greyhound-like sheep, pitiful half-starved-looking animals, subject 
 to rot," crowded Hounslow Heath, and that in 1804 the common 
 
COMMONS AKD COTTAGERS 159 
 
 of Cheshunt waa grazed not by the poor but by a parcel of jobbers. 
 The poverty of the pasture was often proved by the condition of 
 the stock. " It is painful to observe the very wretched appearance 
 of the animals," writes an anonymous author in The Farmer's 
 Magazine for May, 1802, " who have no other dependence but upon 
 the pasture of these commons, and who, in most instances bear a 
 greater resemblance to living skeletons than anything else." " The 
 stock," he continues, " turned out yearly into these commons coii- 
 sists of a motley mixture of all the different breeds of sheep and 
 cattle at present known in the island ; many of which are diseased, 
 deformed, small, and in every respect unworthy of being bred from." 
 In theory, the commons enabled the cottagers, who occupied at 
 higher rents the ancient cottages which legally conferred the rights, 
 to supplement their wages by keeping a cow or two. But the 
 theory did not always agree with the practice. Often, it the 
 cottager had money enough to buy a cow, the cow could barely 
 find a Uving on land already overrun with sheep. The cottager's 
 profits from the commons mainly consisted in the use or sale of 
 turf, gorse, and brushwood which he cut for fuel, the run for a few 
 geese and a " ragged shabby horse " or pony. In theory, again, 
 the value of the commons to a small farmer, whose holding, whether 
 freehold, copyhold, or leasehold, was mainly arable, was inestimable 
 — ^provided that he was near enough to make good use of the grass- 
 land. But, in fact, the value was often minimised by distance, by 
 the wretched condition of the undrained and over-stocked pasture, 
 and by the risk of infection to the Uve-stock. There can be no 
 question that, from an agricultural point of view, five acres of 
 pasture, added in individual occupation to the arable holding of 
 a small occupier, and placed near the rest of his land, would have 
 been a greater boon than pasture rights over 250 acres of common. 
 Some of the practical evils of open-fields and their attendant 
 pasture-commons might have been, with time, skill, and patience, 
 mitigated. In some districts the village farms were better managed 
 than in others. But even if the pressure of increasing population 
 and the difficulties of a great war had not necessitated immediate 
 action, the inherent defects of the system could not be cured. The 
 general description which has been given of open-field farming 
 appUes to every part of the country. Scotland formed no excep- 
 tion to the rule. Scottish farmers, who are now reckoned among 
 the most skilful, were, in 1700, inferior in their management of land 
 
160 JETHRO TOLL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 to those of England, and their methods of raising crops had remained 
 unchanged since the Battle of Bannockbum. Advocates of en- 
 closure in England might legitimately argue that the rapid progress 
 of Scottish farming dates from the General Enclosure Act for 
 Scotland which was passed in 1695. The south-eastern counties 
 were the first to be improved. Forty years before (1661), John 
 Bay ^ had painted an imf avourable picture of the condition of the 
 inhabitants. " The men seem to be very lazy, and may be 
 frequently observed to plow in their cloaks. . . . They have 
 neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor 
 will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would 
 wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use 
 much pottage made of coal-wort, which they call k&A, sometimes 
 broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country houses are 
 pitiful cots, built of stone, and covered with turves, having in them 
 but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small 
 holes, and not glazed." Alexander Garden of Troup describes the 
 farming system which was followed in 1686. The land was divided 
 into in-field and out-field. The in-field was kept " constantly 
 under come and bear, the husbandmen dunging it every thrie years, 
 and, for his pains, if he reap the fourth come, he is satisfied." The 
 out-field was allowed to grow green with weeds and thistles, and, 
 after four or five years of this repose, was twice ploughed and sown 
 with com. Three crops were taken in succession ; then, when the 
 soil was too exhausted to repay seed and labour, it reverted to its 
 weeds and thistles. Sir Archibald Grant,^ of Monymusk in Aber- 
 deenshire, says that in 1716 turnips grown in fields by the Earl of 
 Rothes and a few others were objects of wonder to the neighbour- 
 hood, that, except in East Lothian, no wheat was grown, that on 
 his own estate there were no enclosures, no metalled roads, and no 
 wheel-carriages. On the family property, when his father allowed 
 him to undertake the management — " there was not one acre 
 inclosed, nor any timber upon it, but a few elm, cycamore, and ash 
 about a small kitchen garden adjoining to the house, and some 
 stragling trees at some of the farm-yards, with a small cops- 
 wood, not inclosed, and dwarfish, and broused by sheep and 
 cattle. All the farmes ill disposed, and mixed ; different persons 
 having alternate ridges ; not one wheel-carriage on the esteat, nor 
 
 ^ Select Remama of John Ray, London, 1760. 
 
 * MUedlany of the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1841-2, vol. ii. p. 96 etc. 
 
LAND AS AN INVESTMENT FOR MONEY 161 
 
 indeed any one road that would alow it. . . . The whole land 
 raised and uneven, and full of stones, many of them very large, 
 of a hard iron quality, and all the ridges crooked in shape of an S, 
 and very high and full of noxious weeds, and poor, being worn out 
 by culture, without proper manure or tillage. . . . The people 
 poor, ignorant, and slothfull, and ingrained enimies to planting, 
 enclosing, or any improvements or cleanness." 
 
 Neither in Scotland nor in England were open-field farmers, or 
 tenants-at-will, or even leaseholders for lives, likely to initiate 
 changes in the cultivation of the soil. It was almost equally idle 
 to expect that small freeholders would attempt experiments on the 
 agricultural methods of their forefathers, which, in a single season, 
 might bring them to the verge of ruin. In both countries, it was 
 the large landlords who took the lead in the agricultural revolution 
 of the eighteenth century, and the larger farmers who were the first 
 to adopt improvements. Both classes found that land was the 
 most profitable investment for their capital. Their personal 
 motives were probably, in the maia, self-interested, and a rise in 
 rental value or in the profits of their business was their reward. 
 But though philanthropy and farming make a fractious mixture, 
 the movement was of national value. When the sudden develop- 
 ment of manufacturing industries created new markets for food- 
 supplies, necessity demanded the conversion of the primitive self- 
 sufficing village-farms into factories of bread and meat. For more 
 than half a century the natural conservatism or caution of agri- 
 culturists resisted any extensive change. Down to 1760 the 
 pressure of a growing population was scarcely felt. Nor were the 
 commercial advantages of scientific husbandry so clearly established, 
 even in 1790, as to convince the bulk of English landlords of the 
 wisdom of adopting improved methods. 
 
 The comparatively slow progress of the movement is illustrated 
 by the variations in the number of Enclosure Acts passed before 
 and after 1760. But it must always be remembered that an Act of 
 Parliament was not the only method of enclosure, and that counties 
 had been enclosed, either entirely or mainly, without their inter- 
 vention. In Tudor times open-field arable lands and common 
 pastures had been sometimes enclosed not only by agreement or 
 purchase, but by force or fraud. Sometimes they had been 
 extinguished, in whole or in part, by one individual freeholder, 
 who had bought up the strips of his partners. Sometimes, where 
 
162 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 there was no other freeholder, they had been consolidated by the 
 landlord, who allowed the leases to expire, and re-let the land in 
 several occupation. Sometimes they had been enclosed piece- 
 meal by a number of separate owners ; sometimes aU the partners 
 had united in appointing commissioners, or arbitrators, who dis- 
 tributed the open-field in individual ownership. By these private 
 arrangements large tracts of land had been enclosed without the 
 intervention of the law, and some of these processes continued in 
 active operation throughout the eighteenth century. But it was 
 difficult to make a voluntary agreement imiversally binding. 
 Modifications of the open-field system, which were introduced 
 without Parliamentary sanction, were liable to be set aside by 
 subsequent action. Instances of breaches of voluntary agreements 
 are quoted by the Reporters to the Board of Agriculture. Thus, 
 in one Buckinghamshire parish, the inhabitants, who had obtained 
 an Act of Parliament for the interchange and consolidation of 
 intermixed holdings, but not for their enclosure, ploughed up the 
 dividing balks, and grew clover. But, several years later, one 
 of the farmers asserted his legal right to the herbage of the balks 
 by turning his sheep into the clover crops which had taken their 
 place. In another parish in the same county, the inhabitants 
 agreed to exchange the dual system of one crop and a fallow for a 
 three-year course of two crops and a fallow. But, after a few years, 
 the agreement was broken by one of the farmers exercising his 
 common rights over the fallows by feeding his sheep on the growing 
 crops. Such breaches of voluntary arrangements could only be 
 prevented by obtaining the sanction of Parliament, and so binding, 
 not only dissentients, but those who were minors, possessed limited 
 interests, or were under some other legal disability to give valid 
 assent. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, it had to some extent become the 
 practice to obtain confirmation of enclosing agreements from the 
 Court of Chancery, or, where the Crown was concerned, the Royal 
 sanction. There is some evidence that the threat of a Chancery 
 suit was used as a means of obtaining consents, and that an attempt 
 was made to represent the decision as a legal bar to claims of common 
 by those who were not parties to the suit. After the Restoration 
 a change of practice was made, which marks, perhaps, the growing 
 desire to curb the power of the Crown. The jurisdiction of the 
 Court of Chancery was at first supplemented, then ousted, by the 
 
METHODS OF ENCLOSING LAND 163 
 
 private Act of Parliament. If four-fifths or sometimes a smaller 
 proportion, in number and value, of the parties interested, together 
 with the landowner and the tithe-owner, were agreed, the Enclosure 
 Bill received ParUamentary sanction. Commissioners were ap- 
 pointed who proceeded to make an award, consolidating the inter- 
 mixed lands of the open farm and dividing up the conamons. Of 
 these private Enclosing Acts the earliest instance occurs in the 
 reign of James I. (4 Jac. I. c. 11). But it was not till the reign of 
 Anne that they became the recognised method of proceeding. 
 Even then the Acts were sometimes only confirmatory of arrange- 
 ments already made between the parties. In the reigns of George I. , 
 Geoi^e n., and George HI., the number increased, at first slowly, 
 then rapidly. Acts for enclosing only wastes, in which pasture 
 commons were often included, must be distinguished from those 
 Acts which dealt, not only with pasture-commons, but also with 
 open arable fields and meadows, mown and grazed by the partners 
 in common. Of the first class, there were, in the first sixty years 
 of the eighteenth century, not more than 70 Acts, while from 1760 
 to 1815 there were upwards of 1000. Before 1760 the number of 
 Acts dealing more specifically with the open-field system did not 
 exceed 130. Between 1760 and 1815 the number rose to upwards 
 of 1800. Of the area of waste, open-field and common, actually 
 enclosed for the first time, it is impossible to speak with any cer- 
 tainty. The quantity of land is often not mentioned in the 
 Enclosure Act, or can only be calculated from uncertain data. No 
 record is available for the area enclosed by private arrangement 
 or individual enterprise. It may, however, be safely estimated 
 that not less than 4 million acres were enclosed in England and 
 Wales within the period. Probably this figure was in reahty con- 
 siderably exceeded ; possibly it might be, without exaggeration, 
 increased by two-thirds. 
 
 Before 1790, in many parts of England, the process of enclosing 
 open-field farms and commons had been practically completed by 
 private arrangement without the expensive intervention of Parlia- 
 ment. At different dates, and with little or no legislative help, 
 the ancient system of cultivation, if it ever existed, had been almost 
 extinguished in the south-eastern counties of Suffolk and Essex ; 
 in the southern counties of Kent and Sussex ; in the south-western 
 counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall ; in the western coun- 
 ties of Hereford, Monmouth, Shropshire, and Stafford ; in the 
 
164 JETHEO TULL AJSTD LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 northem counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cum- 
 berland, Northumberland, and Durham. No generalisation will 
 explain why these districts should have been enclosed sooner or 
 more easily than elsewhere.^ The facts remain that no Parlia- 
 mentary enclosures took place in Kent, Devonshire, Cornwall, or 
 Lancashire ; that as early as the middle of the sixteenth century 
 Kent, Essex, and Devonshire were stated by a Tudor writer 
 to be the most enclosed and wealthiest counties ; ^ that in 1602 
 Carew, the historian of Cornwall, recorded that his countrymen " fal 
 everywhere from Commons to Inclosure, and partake not of some 
 Eastern Tenants' envious dispositions, who will sooner prejudice 
 their bwne present thrift, by continuing this mingle-mangle, than 
 advance the Lords expectant benefit, after their terme expired " ; * 
 that in 1656 Joseph Lee^ mentions Essex, Hereford, Devonshire, 
 Shropshire, Worcester as " wholly enclosed " ; that in 1727 the 
 Rev. John Laurence says that " as to the Bishoprick of Durham, 
 which is by much the richest Part of the North, Nine Parts in Ten 
 are already inclosed." ^ 
 
 Since the last half of the fifteenth century the enclosing move- 
 ment had been continuously in operation. Why, in the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries, was more land enclosed by Act of Parlia- 
 ment in some districts than in others ? The answer depends on 
 
 ^ The question may be stated in figures, which are collected from Dr. 
 Slatei's T}ie English Peasantry and the Endoswre of Common Fields (1907), 
 Appendix B. 
 
 During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, enclosures by Act of Par- 
 liament were made of the following areas of open-fields (arable and meadow) 
 and commons, in the South-East and South- West, in the West, the North- 
 west, and North : Suffolk, 22,206 acres ; Essex, 17,393 acres ; Kent, none ; 
 Sussex, 16,186 acres ; Somerset, 30,848 acres ; Devon, none ; Cornwall, none ; 
 Hereford, 8,168 acres; Monmouth, l,293acres; Shropshire, 2,310acres ; StaSord, 
 16,926 acres ; Cheshire, 3,326 acres ; Lancashire, none ; Westmoreland, 3,237 
 acres ; Cumberland, 8,700 acres ; Northumberland, 22,348 acres ; Durham, 4,637 
 acres. 
 
 During the some period the following areas of open-fields and commons 
 were enclosed by Act of Parliament in the Midlands, the East, and the North- 
 East : Bedfordahire, 91,689 {Hsres ; Buckinghamshire, 111,427 acres; Oxford- 
 shire, 142,238 acres ; Northamptonshire, 308,722 acres ; Warwickshire, 131,104 
 acres; Rutland, 43,901 acres; Leicestershire, 186,176 acres; East Biding of 
 Yorkshire, 274,479 acres ; West Biding, 172,944 acres ; Lincolnshire, 446,777 
 acres ; Norfolk, 106,043 acres ; Cambridgeshire, 87,413 acres ; Huntingdonshire, 
 93,366 acres. 
 
 * Oonvpendioua ExammaHon, etc., by W. S. (1649). 
 
 » Comieall (1602). 
 
 ' Vindication o/ a RegubOed Enclosure (1666). 
 
 ° A New System of AgrieuUure (1727). 
 
VARYING DATES OP ENCLOSURES 165 
 
 local circTunstances or agricultural conditions. Disturbances on the 
 northern and western borders were unfavourable to settled agri- 
 culture, and village farms and commons never throve extenmvely 
 in the counties adjoining the borders of Scotland and Wales. In 
 districts which abounded in fens, marshes, moorlands or hills, the 
 space occupied by open-fields was necessarily limited, although the 
 inhabitants of the neighbourhood may have exercised over these 
 waste tracts rights of goose-pasture, of cutting fuel, turf, or reeds, 
 or, where possible, of grazing. But the land, when enclosed, was 
 taken in from the wild, and was, from the first, cultivated in separate 
 holdings. Other districts, which naturally were clothed with 
 extensive woodlands or forest, were enclosed piecemeal by individual 
 enterprise for individual occupation. After the end of the four- 
 teenth century, it is unlikely that any cleared land would have been 
 cultivated in common. Other districts, lastly, which were indus- 
 trially developed by the neighbourhood of large towns, or by the 
 existence of some manufacturing industry, were eeirly enclosed, 
 either because of the demand for animal food and dairy produce, or 
 because of the scarcity of purely agricultural labour. 
 
 On these general principles, before the era of ParUamentary 
 enclosure, may be partially explained the comparative absence or 
 disappearance of open-fields and pasture commons in the border 
 counties, in the Wealds of Surrey, Kent, Sussex, in the forest 
 districts of Hampshire, Essex, Warwickshire, or Nottinghamshire, 
 in the neighbourhood of London or Bristol, or in the clothing 
 districts of Devon and Somerset, of Essex, and Suffolk, or of parts 
 of Norfolk. No doubt enclosure of cultivated land by agreement 
 was at this period chiefly made for grazing and dairying purposes. 
 But at the same time a large addition was being continuously made 
 to the arable area of the country, partly by the reconversion of 
 grass-land to tillage after fertiUty had been restored by rest, partly 
 by the reclamation and enclosure of new land well adapted for 
 grain. " Consider," writes BHth, " the Wood-lands who before 
 Enclosure were wont to be releeved by the Meldon with Com of 
 all sorts. And now are grown as gallant Com Countries as be in 
 England." ^ This addition to tillage necessarily affected the whole 
 of the old com-growing districts, where a large acreage, more fitted 
 for pasture than for tillage, was kept under the plough by the 
 open-field system. The effect was more and more felt when in- 
 • The Engliah Improver, chap. sdii. 
 
166 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 creasing facilities of commimication enabled f aimers to put their 
 land to the best use by reheving them from the old uniform 
 necessity of growing com for the locality. 
 
 Elsewhere, the early or late enclosure of land was in the main 
 determined by such agricultural reasons as climate or soil. En- 
 closure took place first, where it paid best agricultiurally. In 
 the moister climate of the South-west and West the rigid separa- 
 tion of arable from pasture was unnecessary. In some parts of 
 the country the suitability of the land for hops or fruit necessitated 
 early enclosure. Blith's reference to the plantation of the hedge- 
 rows with fruit-trees in " Worcestershire, Hereford, and Glostershire 
 and great part of the county of Kent " points to separate occupation 
 in the first half of the seventeenth century.^ In other parts, if 
 corn-land was more adapted to pasture, it was, under the new con- 
 ditions, enclosed and laid down to grass. It was thus that the 
 grazing districts on the water-bearing pasture belt of the Midlands, 
 or the dairying districts of Gloucestershire or Wiltshire came into 
 separate occupation. So also, where the soil was of a quality to 
 respond quickly to turnips, clover, and artificial grasses, it was 
 enclosed in order that it might profit by the new discoveries. This 
 was the case on the hght soils of Norfolk, where, as Houghton noted, 
 turnip husbandry had been introduced with success before the 
 close of the seventeenth century. This early use of roots is con- 
 firmed by Defoe,* who says of Norfolk ; " This part of England is 
 remarkable for being the first where the Feeding and Fattening of 
 Cattle, both Sheep as well as black Cattle, with Turnips, was first 
 practis'd in England." 
 
 Where land did not appear to be so immediately susceptible to 
 the influence of these improvements, which were still imperfectly 
 understood, the question of enclosure, and of the use to which the 
 land was put, became mainly one of expense. Only the best and 
 strongest land was able to endure the open-field system without 
 exhaustion. To separate occupiers, eighteenth century improve- 
 ments offered new means of restoring the fertiUty of exhausted soil. 
 At the same time the revolution in stock-breeding held out new 
 temptations to graziers. Much worn-out arable land of indifferent 
 or medium quality was enclosed because its produce was declining. 
 
 ^ English Improver, chap. ziz. 
 
 ' A Tow thro' the whole Island of Qreat Britain {2nd edition, 1738), vol. i. 
 pp. 60-61. Defoe began his tour in 1722. 
 
DISTRICTS ENCLOSED BY ACT OP PARLIAMENT 167 
 
 If the price of com was low, It was cheaper, and more profitable for 
 the time, to lay it down to grass. If prices were high, the increased 
 margin of profits from arable farming mider separate management 
 might cover the heavy cost of legislation and adaptation. Through- 
 ont the eighteenth centniy the number of Enclosure Acts fluctuated 
 considerably with the advance or decline in the price of wheat. 
 Thus the serious scarcity of com from 1765 to 1774 produced a 
 great crop of legislation. During the next fifteen years, the number 
 of Acts was kept in check by the comparative abundance of the 
 harvests. Once more, during the famine years of the Napoleonic 
 war, the Acts rapidly multipUed imder the pressure of necessity 
 and with the progress of agricultural skUl. The need was too 
 urgent to admit of those private arrangements for the break-up of 
 open-field farms which could often only be carried out after years 
 of preparation. Private Acts of Parhament were more speedy in 
 their operation. StOl the quaJity of the soil to a great extent con- 
 trolled the course of legislation. Open-fields continued longest in 
 the districts where the soil was chalk, or where the village farm 
 occupied rich corn-growing land, or where the soil was so unsuited 
 for grass that the prospects of increased profits from arable fanning, 
 even in separate occupation, were doubtful. A geological map of 
 the country would, it is believed, supply the key to many difficulties 
 in the history of enclosure. 
 
 The parts of England which were most affected by the Enclosure 
 Acts of the Hanoverian era were the corn-growing districts of the 
 East, North-east, and East Midlands. Within this area are four- 
 teen out of the fifteen counties which, in proportion to their size, 
 contained the largest acreage enclosed by Act of Parhament. The 
 ease with which in other districts individual occupation was sub- 
 stituted for common cultivation renders it difficult to answer the 
 question, why in these particular groups of counties the cheaper 
 process of private arrangement was not adopted ? No completely 
 satisfactory answer can be given. It was from these districts that 
 the greatest opposition to the enclosing movement of the Tudor 
 and Stewart periods had come. It was also in these districts that, 
 in the closing years of Elizabeth, enclosures were proceeding so 
 rapidly as to be restricted by a special Act of Parhament.^ The 
 effect of popular outcry and consequent legislation may have been 
 to confine the enclosing movement to Northamptonshire, Leicester- 
 1 39 Eliz. c. 2 (1597). 
 
168 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 shiie, and Warwickshire, where it continued to run its course in 
 the seventeenth century. Elsewhere in the Midlands, the counties 
 that fonned the area from which London drew its chief suppUes 
 of com, could not have been converted into pasture without raising 
 a storm of opposition. Yet throughout the seventeenth century 
 and during the first three quarters of the eighteenth, enclosures 
 had been most profitable where arable land had been converted to 
 grass, and large tracts of Midland pasture were the result of this 
 movement before Parliamentary intervention had begun. Leicester- 
 shire is a conspicuous example of this conversion. It was, notes 
 Marshall in 1786, " not long ago an open arable county ; now it is 
 a continuous sheet of greensward." The vale of Belvoir, which, in 
 the days of Plattes, was considered to be the richest corn-district 
 in the country, had been laid down to grass before the time of Defoe 
 (1722-38).* He describes the whole county as given over to grazing. 
 " Even most of the Gentlemen are Grasiers, and in some Places the 
 Grasiers are so rich that they grow Gentlemen." Yet in the first 
 half of the seventeenth century it had been a county of open- 
 fields, famous for the pigs that were fattened on its beans and 
 pease.^ Apart from difficulties arising from local peculiarities of 
 tenure, or of the shape of open-field farms, or from want of roads, 
 from public opinion, or special legislation, the Midland com counties 
 perhaps owed some of their immunity to the interested opposition 
 of tithe-owners, whose assent was necessary to Parliamentary 
 enclosure. For the sake of the great tithes, they would always 
 strenuously resist any attempt by private Act to turn open-fields 
 into pasture farms. It was not till after 1765 that their views 
 underwent a change. The improvements in arable farming, which 
 were now possible on separate holdings, together with the high 
 price of com, made it probable that, even when open-fields and 
 commons were enclosed, the area of tillage would not be diminished. 
 These considerations were strengthened during the French wars of 
 1793-1815, which by the stoppage of foreign com suppUes added 
 new reasons for seeking legislative aid in enclosure. 
 
 Up to the accession of G«orge III. (1760) prices of com ruled low. 
 More than once in the preceding period (1700-60) loud complaints 
 were heard of agriculttiral depression, of farmers unable to pay 
 
 » Tow, voL u. pp. 332, 335. 
 
 * The same remark is made by Professor Bradley in his QetMeman and 
 Farmer's Ovidefor the Increase and Improvement of Caith (1729), p. 76. 
 
AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR 169 
 
 their rents, of the small gentry forced to sell their estates, of huid- 
 lords compelled by loss of income to curtail their establishments. 
 As yet there was no scarcity caused by population outstripping pro- 
 duction, no increased demand for food supplies from great industrial 
 centres. But without these spurs to farming progress, preparations 
 for advance were being made, and far-reaching improvements in 
 the cultivation of arable land had been akeady tested or initiated 
 by men like Jethro Tull and Lord Townshend. 
 
 In the progress of scientific farming Tull is one of the most 
 remarkable of pioneers. His method of drilling wheat and roots 
 in rows was not generally adopted till many years aiter his death. 
 But the main principles which he laid down in his Horse-Boeing 
 Husbandry (1733) proved to be the principles on which was based 
 an agricultural revolution in tillage. The " greatest individual 
 improver " that British agriculture had ever known, he sought to 
 discover scientific reasons for observed results of particular practices. 
 He was thus led to strike out for himself new and independent lines 
 of investigation. The chemistry of plant-life was in its infancy, 
 the science of vegetable physiology an almost untrodden field of 
 knowledge. Into these comparatively unexplored regions Tull 
 advanced alone, and, by minute observation of nature and stubborn 
 tenacity of purpose, he advanced far. Considering his difficulties 
 and disadvantages, it is a remarkable proof of his real genius that 
 he should have discovered so much. He Uved in a soUtary farm- 
 house, remote from such scientific aid as the age afforded, or from 
 friends in whom he could confide. His microscope was " very 
 ordinary " ; his appliances were self-made ; his experiments 
 thought out for himself. He made his observations and notes, 
 tortured by the " stone, and other diseases as incurable and almost 
 as cruel." His labourers, by whom he was, metaphorically, 
 " insulted, assaulted, kicked, cufEed and bridewelled," tried his 
 patience beyond endurance. His son turned out an extravagant 
 spendthrift who ended his days in the Fleet Prison. Hi-health and 
 misfortune made Ih'tti irritable. His sensitive nature was galled 
 alike by the venomous criticism of the book,^ in which he published 
 the results of his thirty years' experience as a farmer, and by its 
 shameless plagiarism. Yet he never lost his confidence that his 
 
 ^ The new Horse-Houghing Husbandry, 1731. (Five chapters of the sub- 
 sequent book which were pirated and re-printed in Ireland.) New Horse- 
 Hoing Husbandry, 1733. Supplement, 1740. William Cobbett edited and 
 published the Horse-Hoeing Husbandry in 1822 : 2nd edition, 1829. 
 
170 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 " practice wovild one day become the general husbandly of 
 England," 
 
 The son of a Berkshire landowner, Jethro Tull was bom at 
 Basildon in 1674. From Oxford, which he left without taking a 
 degree, he entered Gray's Inn as a law student, made the grand 
 tour of Europe, and was called to the Bar in 1699. Scholar, 
 musician, traveller, lawyer, he became a farmer not by choice but 
 from necessity. In 1699 he settled down with his newly married 
 wife at " Howberry " Farm ^ in the parish of Crowmarsh, near 
 Wallingford. There he lived ten years. In 1709 he moved to Mount 
 Prosperous, a hill-farm in the parish of Shalboum, on the borders 
 of Berkshire and Wiltshire. Two years later, the failure of his health 
 drove him abroad to save his life. Betuming in 1714 to Mount 
 Prosperous, he remained there till his death ia 1740, hving in a house, 
 covered with home-made glazed tiles, which Arthur Young, who 
 visited the place fifty years later, described as a " wretched hovel." 
 
 At Crowmarsh Tull invented his drill. As a gentleman-farmer 
 
 he found himself at the mercy of his farm-servants. From his own 
 
 experience he verified the truth of the saying : 
 
 " He who by the plough wotild thrive 
 Must either hold himself or drive." 
 
 He determined to plant his whole farm with sainfoin. But " seed 
 was scarce, dear and bad, and enough could scarce be got to sow, 
 as was usual, seven bushels to the acre." He set himself to conquer 
 the difficulty. By constant observation and experiment he learned 
 the difierence between good and bad seed, as well as the advantages 
 of care in selection, of cleaning, steeping, and change ; he also proved 
 that a thin sowing produced the thickest crop, and discovered the 
 exact depth at which the seed throve best. " So," he says, " I 
 caused channels to be made, and sowed a very small proportion of 
 seed, covered exactly. This was a great success." But it was also 
 an innovation, and his laboureis struck in a body. Tull refused to 
 be beaten. He set his inventive faculty to work " to contrive an 
 engine to plant sainfoin more faithfully than hands would do." 
 HiH knowledge of the mechanism of an organ stood him in good 
 stead. The groove, tongue, and spring of the sounding board 
 suggested the idea of an implement which delivered the seed 
 through notched barrels. Behind was attached a bush harrow 
 
 ^It is remarkable that this farm now (1912) contains one of the most 
 highly cultivated pieces of land in the world. 
 
INVENTION OF THE CORN-DRILL 171 
 
 which covered the seed. The machine answered its purpose, and 
 he afterwards introduced several improvements of his original plan. 
 The originality of his invention cannot justly be disputed, though 
 his enemies, and he had many, asserted that he brought the machine 
 from abroad or had been preceded by Plat, Plattes or WorUdge. 
 All four inventors saw the advantage of sowing not broadcast but 
 in rows. Both Plat and Plattes were setters, rather than drillers, 
 of com, and they took for their model the dibbing of beans or peas. 
 Plat seems to have invented a board, to which were fixed iron 
 dibbers. Something of this sort is depicted on the title-page of 
 Edward Maxey's New Instruction ^ (1601). Gabriel Plattes designed 
 a machine to punch holes in the land as it went along. But, as is 
 pointed out in Harthb's Legacie, the author of which suggested 
 hoeing the furrows by hand, the machine would have been prac- 
 tically useless in wet and heavy land. Neither Plat nor Plattes 
 contemplated a mechanical sowing ; both intended the seed to be 
 deposited by hand. In this respect WorUdge's drill was an advance 
 on his predecessors. He placed coulters in front of the seed-boxes, 
 from which the seed was deposited through barrels into furrows. 
 But he never made or tried his implement. When Professor Brad- 
 ley in 1727 constructed a machine from WorUdge's drawing, he 
 found that it would not work. To Tull, therefore, belongs the 
 credit of the first drill which served any practical piurpose. 
 
 Tnll's many mechanical inventions were less valuable than the 
 reasons which he gave for their employment. TTiH implements 
 were speedily superseded ; his principles of agriculture remain. 
 Ihiring his foreign travels he was impressed with the cultivation 
 of vineyards in the south of France, where frequent ploughings 
 between parallel rows of vines not only cleaned the land, but 
 worked and stirred the food-beds of the plants until the vintage 
 approached maturity. TuU determined to extend the principles 
 of vine-culture to the crops of the English farm. He argued that 
 tillage was equally necessary before and after sowing. When crops 
 were sown, nature at once began to undo the effect of previous 
 ploughings and sowings. The earth united, coalesced,' consolidated, 
 and BO shut out the air and water from the roots, and decreased 
 the food supply at the moment when the growing plants most 
 needed increased nourishment. To some extent the use of farm- 
 
 * A New Instruction of Plowing and, Setting of Come, handled in manner 
 of a Diaiogtie betweene a Ploughman and a SchoUer. 
 
172 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 yard manure kept the land friable ; but it also stimulated the 
 growth of weeds. The better course, therefore, was to keep the 
 land pulverised by tillage and so to prevent the contraction of 
 the food area of the growing crops. So long as wheat and tiimips 
 were sown broadcast, this method could not be satisfactorily 
 employed. But if they were drilled in rows, divided by sufficiently 
 wide intervals, the principles of vine culture could be profitably 
 applied. In two ways the crops benefited by constant tillage. 
 In the first place, the land was kept clean from weeds, and so saved 
 from exhaustion. In the second place, the repeated pulverisation 
 of the soil admitted air, rain-water, and dews to the roots of the 
 plants, and extended the range from which their lateral growths 
 drew their food supplies. In some respects Tull's system failed. 
 His rows of thinly sown wheat, for instance, were drilled so far 
 apart that the plants were slow to mature, and therefore, if sown late 
 in the year, were more susceptible to blight. But for tmmips his 
 method was admirable. Incidentally also he found that his " drill 
 husbandry " was a substitute not only for fallows, but for farm- 
 yard dung, which he dreaded as a weed-carrier. Without fallows or 
 manure, he grew on the same land, by constant tillage, for thirteen 
 years in succession heavier wheat crops, from one-third of the 
 quantity of seed, than his neighbours could produce by following 
 the accepted routine. By this discovery he anticipated one of the 
 most startling results of the Rothamsted experiments. 
 
 The chief legacies which Jethro Tull left to his successors were 
 clean farming, economy in seedings, drilling, and the maxim that 
 the more the irons are among the roots the better for the crop. 
 It was along these lines that agriculture advanced. On open- 
 field farmers who sowed their seed broadcast, thickly, and at 
 varying depths, Tull's experiments were lost. Equally fruitless, 
 so far as his immediate neighbours were concerned, was his demon- 
 stration of the value of sainfoin and turnips, or the drilling of 
 wheat and roots. Even his system of drilling roots was neglected 
 in England, tiU it had been tested and adopted in Scotland. 
 
 It was not tUl TuU's principles were put in practice by large 
 landlords in various parts of the country that their full advantages 
 became apparent. In England this was the work of men like Lord 
 Townshend at Raynham in Norfolk, Lord Ducie at Woodchester 
 in Gloucestershire, or Lord Halifax at Abbs Court near Walton- 
 on-Thames. In Scotland the " Tullian system " was enthusiasti- 
 
FARMING A FASHION 173 
 
 cally preached by the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of 
 Agriculture in Scotland (founded 1723, dissolved 1745), by Lord 
 Cathcart, and by Mr. Hope of Rankeillor. In the Heart of Mid- 
 lothian, Scott is true to the spirit, if not to the details, of history 
 when he credits the Duke of Argyll with a keen interest in all 
 branches of farming and the introduction into Inverness-shire of a 
 herd of Devonshire cattle. Agriculture had for the moment become 
 a fashion in society, a part, perhaps, of the artificial movement which 
 in gardening created the Landscape School. Tull's system was 
 discussed at Court. It was explained to Greorge II., and therefore 
 interested Lady Suffolk. The practical Queen Caroline subscribed 
 to the publication of the Horse-Hoeing Husbandry. Pope loved to 
 " play the philosopher among cabbages and turnips." Sir Robert 
 Walpole, it is said, opened the letters of his farm steward before he 
 broke the seals of correspondence on State affairs ; Bohngbroke 
 caused Dawley Farm to be painted with trophies of ricks, spades, 
 and prongs, and, propped between two haycocks, read Swift's 
 letters, uplifting his eyes to heaven, not in admiration of the author 
 but in fear of rain. " Dawley," said his poUtical opponents, " has 
 long been famous for a Great Cry and Uttle Wool. Tup Harry 
 become Mutton master." ^ 
 
 Other landowners threw themselves energetically into the practical 
 work of agricultural improvement. Charles, second Viscount 
 Townshend, may be taken as a type of the reforming landlords who 
 took the lead in farming their estates. Bom in 1674, he died in 
 1738, having succeeded to the title and estates of his father when 
 a child of thirteen years old. In his early life, he had played a 
 prominent part in the political history of the country at a critical 
 period. Lord Privy Seal under Wilham HI., he served as a Com- 
 missioner to treat for the Union of England and Scotland, and, as 
 a joint plenipotentiary with Marlborough, signed the Peace of 
 Gertruydenberg in 1709. In the same year, as Ambassador at the 
 Hague, he negotiated the famous Barrier Treaty. Under George I. 
 and George IE., he acted as Secretary of State, was appointed Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, and, as joint Secretary of State with Walpole, 
 directed the foreign poUcy of Great Britain. 
 
 In 1730 Lord Townshend retired from pohtical life to Baynham 
 in Norfolk. There he devoted himself to the care of his estates, 
 experimenting in the farming practices which he had observed 
 » The Hyp Doctor, No. 32, July 20, 1731. 
 
174 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 
 
 abroad, and devoting himself, above all, to improvements in the 
 rotation of crops, and to the field cultivation of turnips and clover, 
 which, in the preceding half century, had been successfully intro- 
 duced in the county. His land mainly consisted of rush-grown 
 marshes, or sandy wastes where a few sheep starved and " two 
 rabbits struggled for every blade of grass." The brief but exhaustive 
 list of its productions is " nettles and warrens." Townshend 
 revived the ancient but almost obsolete practice of marling the 
 light lands of Norfolk. Farmers believed that marl was " good 
 for the father, bad for the son," tUI he proved its value on the 
 sandy soil of the county. The tide of fashion set once more in its 
 favour, and farmers foimd another proverbial saying for their 
 
 purpose : 
 
 " He who marls sand 
 May buy the land ; 
 He that marls moss 
 SufEers no loss ; 
 He that marls clay 
 Throws all away." 
 
 By the use of marl alone Young calculates that " four hundred 
 thousand acres have been turned into gardens." Following the 
 lines of Jethro Tull, Townshend drilled and horse-hoed his turnips 
 instead of sowing them broadcast. He was also the initiator of 
 the so-called Norfolk, or four-course, system of cropping, in which 
 cereals, roots, and artificial grasses were alternated. The intro- 
 duction of roots and grasses encouraged the farmer to observe the 
 useful rule of never taking two com crops in succession, saved him 
 from the necessity of leaving a portion of land every year in unpro- 
 ductive fallow, enabled him to carry more stock and maintain it 
 without falling off during the winter months. For the light sands 
 of Norfolk turnips possessed a special value. Boots, fed on the 
 ground by sheep, fertilised and consoUdated the poorest soil. 
 Another portion of the crop, drawn off and stored for winter keep, 
 helped the farmer to keep more stock, to obtain more manure, to 
 enrich the land, to increase its yield, to verify the truth of the 
 proverb " A fuU bullock-yard and a full fold make a full granary."^ 
 Farming in a circle, unlike arguing, proved a productive process. 
 
 So zealous was Townshend's advoceicy of turnips as the pivot 
 of agricultural improvement, that he gained the nickname of 
 " Turnip " Townshend, and supplied Pope with an example for 
 his Horatian Illustrations, (Bk. ii. Epist. ii. 11. 270-9) : 
 
A CHAMPION OP TURNIPS 175 
 
 " Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one 
 Ploughs, bums, manures, and toils from sun to sun ; 
 The other slights, for women, sports, and wines, 
 All Townshend's turnips and all Grosvenor's mines. 
 
 Is known alone to that Directing Power 
 Who forms the genius in the natal hour." 
 
 Townshend's efforts to improve his estates were richly rewarded. 
 On the sandy soil of his own county, his methods were peculiarly 
 successful. Fuize-capi)ed warrens were in a few years converted 
 into tracts of weU-cultivated productive land. Those who followed 
 his example realised fortunes. In thirty years one farm rose in 
 rental value from £180 to £800 ; another, rented by a warrener at 
 £18 a year, was let to a farmer at an annual rent of £240 ; a farmer 
 named Mallett is said to have made enough off a holding of 1500 
 acres to buy an estate of the amiual value of £1800. Some farmers 
 were reported to be worth ten thousand pounds. But the example 
 only spread into other counties by slow degrees. Outside Norfolk, 
 both landlords and farmers still classed turnips with rats as 
 Hanoverian innovations, and refused their assistance with Jacobite 
 indignation. Even in Townshend's own county, it was not till the 
 close of the century that the practice was at all universally adopted ; 
 stiU later was it before the improved methods were accepted which 
 converted Lincolnshire from a rabbit-warren or a swamp into corn- 
 fields and pasture. 
 
CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 THE STOCK-BREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 (1725-95). 
 
 Necessity for impioving the live-stock of the country ; sheep valued for 
 their wool, cattle for power of draught or yield of milk ; beef and mutton 
 the growing need : Robert Bakewell the agricultural opportunist ; his 
 experiments with the Black Horse, the Leicester Longhoms, and the New 
 Leicesters ; rapid progress of stock-breeding : sacrifice of wool to mutton. 
 
 Without the aid of turnips the mere support of Hve-stock had 
 been in winter and spring a difficult problem ; to fatten sheep and 
 cattle for the market was in many districts a practical impossibility. 
 The introduction, therefore, of the field cultivation of roots, clover, 
 and artificial grasses proved the pivot of agricultural progress. It 
 enabled farmers to carry more nimierous, bigger, and heavier stock ; 
 more stock gave more manure ; more manure raised larger crops ; 
 larger crops supported still larger flocks and herds. Thus to the 
 hopeful enthusiasts of the close of the eighteenth century the agri- 
 cultural circle seemed capable of ahnost indefinite and always pro- 
 fitable expansion. 
 
 But recent improvements in arable farming could not yield their 
 fuU profits till the live-stock of the country was also improved. 
 The necessary revolution in the breeding and rearing of stock was 
 mainly the work of Robert Bakewell (1725-95), a Leicestershire 
 farmer, living at Dishley, near Loughborough. Its results were 
 even more remarkable than those which followed from the new 
 methods of Tull and Townshend. Bakewell's improvements were 
 also more immediately accepted by agriculturists. The slow 
 adoption of improved practices in tillage was mainly due to caution ; 
 in some degree, also, it waa due to the fact that the innovators 
 were, if not amateiurs, gentlemen-farmers.^ On the other hand, 
 
 ' In 1766 or 1767 Mr. Pringle, a retired army surgeon, introduced the 
 drilling of turnips on his estate near Coldstream in Berwickshire. His crops 
 
EXISTING BREEDS OF SHEEP 177 
 
 the improved principles of stock-breeding were more readily 
 accepted, not only because their superiority was at once manifest 
 to the eye, but because they emanated from the practical brain of 
 a professional farmer. Yet for open-field farmers they were of 
 little value. As sheep and cattle increased in size and weight, and 
 were bred for more speedy conversion into mutton and beef, they 
 needed better and more abimdant food than village farms could 
 supply. Thus the improvements of Bakewell, like those of TuH 
 and Townshend, added a new impulse to the progress of enclosures. 
 Up to the middle of the eighteenth century sheep had been 
 valued, agriculturally for their maniu-e in the fold, commercially 
 for their skins and, above all, for their wool. Wool was in fact 
 the chief source of trading profit to English farmers. Other forms 
 of agricultural produce were raised as much for home consumption 
 as for sale. But the trade in raw or manufactured wool, both at 
 home and abroad, had been for centuries the most important of 
 English industries. To the golden fleece the carcase was sacrificed ; 
 the mutton as food was comparatively neglected. As wool-pro- 
 ducing animals sheep were classified into short wools and long wools. 
 Of these two classes, short-wooled sheep were by far the most 
 numerous, and were scattered aU over England. Small in frame, 
 active, hardy, able to pick up a hving on the scantiest food, patient 
 of hunger, they were the sheep of open-field farmers ; they were 
 the breeds formed by centuries of far travelling, close feeding on 
 scanty pasturage, and a starvation allowance of hay in winter. 
 Such were the " heath-croppers " of Berkshire — small ill-shaped 
 sheep which, however, produced " very sweet mutton." In some 
 counties, as, for instance, Buckinghamshire, open-field farmers 
 hired sheep, with or without a shepherd, for folding on their arable 
 land. The flocks, hired from Bagshot Heath, were fed, partly on 
 the commons, partly on the arable fallows, where they were folded 
 every night from April to October. No money passed. The flock- 
 master was paid by the feed ; the farmer by the folding. The one 
 made his profit by the wool, the other by the manure. Sometimes 
 
 were superior to those of the neighbouring fEtrmers. But none followed his 
 example. In 1762 a fanner named William Dawson adopted the practice 
 on his farm at Frogden in Roxburghshire. " No sooner did Mr. Dawson 
 (an actual farmer) adopt the same system, than it was immediately followed, 
 not only by several farmers in his vicinity, but by those very farmers adjoining 
 Mr. Pringle, whose crops they had seen for ten or twelve years so much superior 
 to their own " (Oeneral view of the Agriculture of the County of Northumberland, 
 by J. Bailey and G. Culley, Srd edition (1806), p. 102). 
 
 M 
 
178 STOCKBREEDER'S ART' AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 small men who had rights of common, or had acquired them from 
 commoners, drove their flocks from open-field to open-field, folding 
 them on the fallow lands of the vlUage farm and receiving from 
 the occupiers of the fallows Is. a week per score or leave to graze 
 on the commons during some part of the winter. Nearly every 
 breeding county in England had its local favourites, adapted to their 
 environment of soU, climate, and geographical configuration. For 
 fineness of wool, the Ryeland or Herefordshire sheep now held the 
 first place in the manufacture of superfine broad-cloth, though in 
 the fourteenth century the fleece of the Morfe Common sheep of 
 Shropshire had commanded the highest prices. Sussex South 
 Downs, inferior in size and shape to their present type, were also 
 famed for the excellence of their soft, fine, curly wools. Dorsets, 
 already prized for their early lambs, supplied Ilminster with the 
 material for its second, or liveiy, cloths. West-country clothiers 
 drew their supplies, partly from Wales, partly from the large, 
 homed, and black-faced Wiltshires, from the Exmoors, Dartmoors, 
 or Devonshire Notts, the Mendips of Somerset, the Dean Foresters 
 of Gloucester, or the Ryelands of Herefordshire. The eastern 
 counties had their native short- wooled Norfolk and Suffolk breeds. 
 The North had its Cheviots, its Northimiberland Muggs, its Lanca- 
 shire Silverdales, its Cumberland Herdwicks, its Cheshire Delameres. 
 Here and there, some local breed was especially famous for the 
 quality of its mutton, like that of Banstead or of Bagshot in Surrey, 
 of Portland in Dorsetshire, of Clun Forest in Shropshire, or of the 
 mountain sheep of Wales. But, speaking generally, it was by their 
 fleeces only that sheep were distinguished. The local varieties of 
 short-wools differed widely from one another. In appearance the 
 long-wools were more uniform in type ; all were polled, white-faced, 
 and white-legged ; all were large-framed, and, from more abundant 
 food, heavier in carcase and in fleece ; in all the wool was long, 
 straight, and strong. Less widely distributed than the other class, 
 they were also by far the least numerous. In the eighteenth century 
 they probably did not exceed more than one-fourth of the total 
 number of sheep in the country. But the superior weight of their 
 fleeces made their produce more than one-third of the total cUp. 
 Among the long-wools the Cotswolds were, at this time, pre- 
 eminent. Other varieties, better adapted to the special conditions 
 of their respective counties, were the Lincolns, Leicesters, Devon- 
 shire Bamptons, and the Romney Marsh sheep of Kent. 
 
EXISTING BREEDS OF CATTLE 179 
 
 With these different breeds, both short and long wools, there was 
 abundant scope for experiment and improvement. Some effort 
 had been made at the close of the seventeenth century, as has 
 been already noticed, to improve the lustrous fleeces of Lincolns, 
 and to remedy the bareness of their legs and beUies. But, from 
 the grazier's point of view, no breeder had yet attempted to obtain 
 a more profitable shape. If any care was shown in the selection 
 of rams and ewes, the choice was guided by fanciful points which 
 possessed no practical value. Thus Wiltshire breeders demanded 
 a horn which fell back so as to form a semicircle, beyond which 
 the ear projected ; Norfolk flockmasters valued the length and 
 spiral form of the horn and the blackness of the face and legs ; 
 Dorsetshire shepherds staked everything on the horn projecting 
 in front of the ear ; champions of the South Downs condemned all 
 alike, and made their grand objects a speckled face and leg and no 
 horn at all. 
 
 In cattle, again, no true standard of shape was recognised. Size 
 was the only criterion of merit. " Nothing would please," wrote 
 George CuUey in 1786, " but Elephants or Giants." ^ The qualities 
 for which animals were valued were not propensity to fatten or 
 early maturity, but their milking capacity or their power of draught. 
 The pail and the plough set the standard ; the butcher was ignored. 
 Each breeding county, however, had its native varieties, classified 
 into Middle-homs, prevailing in the South and West of England, 
 in Wales and in Scotland ; Long-horns, in the North-west of 
 England and the Midlands ; and Short-horns, in the North-east, 
 Yorkshire, and Durham. 
 
 The Middle-homs in the South and West of England were red 
 cattle of a uniform type ; the North Devons, nimble and free of 
 movement, were unrivalled in the yoke ; the Herefords, not yet 
 bred with white faces, were heavier animals which fattened to a 
 greater weight ; the Sussex breed came midway in size between 
 the two. None of the three were remarkable for the quantity of 
 their milk. Other middle-homed breeds were the black Pembrokes, 
 like their Cornish relatives, excellent for the small farmer, and 
 the Ked Glamorgans, which in the eighteenth century were highly 
 esteemed as an all-round breed. Every year thousands of the 
 black Angleseys were swum across the Menai Straits to the main- 
 
 ^ Quoted by Arthur Toung in his Lecture on the Husbandry of Three Famous 
 Farmers (1811), pp. 10-11. 
 
180 STOCItBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 land. Scotland had its West Highlanders ; its Ayrshiies, second 
 to none as milkers ; its Galloways and its Angases, originally 
 middle-homed but now becoming polled, which were driven south- 
 wards to the October and November fairs of Norfolk and Suffolk 
 to be fattened for the London markets. On these imported Gallo- 
 ways were founded the Norfolk breed of polled cattle, and the 
 Suffolk Duns once famous all over England for their milking 
 qnaUties. The North-west of England and the Midlands were 
 occupied by the Long-horns. Of these the most celebrated were 
 the Lancashires, or Cravens, so called from their home in the 
 comer of the West Riding of Yorkshire which borders on Lancashire 
 and Westmoreland. To this breed some attention had, as is noticed 
 in the Legacie, been paid in the seventeenth century. To the same 
 stock belonged the brindled or grizzled Staffordshires, valued, like 
 the Cravens, for the dairy and for meat. The North of Lincoln- 
 shire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and Diu:ham were famous for 
 the enormous size of their short-homed cattle, which were extra- 
 ordinary milkers. The Holdemess breed, as it was called before 
 its estabUshment on the banks of the Tees, were " more like an 
 ill-made black horse than an ox or cow." ^ The cattle were badly 
 shaped, long-bodied, bulky in the coarser points, small in the prime 
 parts. But they satisfied the taste of the eighteenth century 
 grazier, because their gigantic frames offered plenty of bone on 
 which to lay flesh. They were undoubtedly a breed of foreign 
 origin. Tradition relates that, towards the end of the seventeenth 
 centuiy, a bull and some cows were introduced into the Holdemess 
 district from the Low Countries. But the introduction must have 
 been of an earlier date. Lawson in his New Orchard (1618) says : 
 " The goodnesse of the soile in Howie, or Hollow-, demess in York- 
 shire is well knowne to all that know the River Humber and the 
 huge bulkes of their Cattell there." It is probably to this intro- 
 duction of foreign blood that Child alludes in his Letter in Hartlib's 
 Legacie (1651), when he says that httle attention was paid to 
 breeding except in the north-western and north-eastern counties. 
 To the same stock belonged the " long-legged short-hom'd Cow of 
 the Dutch breed," which Mortimer (1707) selected as the best 
 breed for milking. Probably, also, the famous " Lincolnshire Ox " 
 was one of these Holdemess Dutch-crossed animals. This beast 
 was exhibited, as the Advertisement sets out, " with great satisfac- 
 1 Culley'B ObeervcOiona on Live Stock (1786), p. 30. 
 
HORSE-BREEDING 181 
 
 tion, at the University of Cambridge," in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 He •was " Nineteen Hands High, and Four Yards Long from his 
 Face to his Rump. The like Beast for Bigness was never seen in 
 the World before. Vivat Begina ! " 
 
 Stock-breeding, as applied to both cattle and sheep, was the 
 haphazard union of nobody's son with everybody's daughter. On 
 open-field farms parish bulls were only selected for the quality 
 in which Mr. Shandy's pet, so strenuously denounced by Obadiah, 
 was alleged to be wanting. When prizes were offered for the 
 longest legs, it is not surprising that all over the country were 
 scattered tall, raw-boned, wall-sided cattle, and lean, leggy, 
 unthrifty sheep. Our ancestors, however, were not unwise in their 
 generation. Length of leg was necessary, when animals had to 
 traverse miiy lanes and " foundrous " highways, and roam for 
 miles in search of food. Size of bone served the ox in good stead 
 when he had to draw a heavy plough through stifi soil. But a 
 time was rapidly approaching when beef and mutton were to be 
 more necessary than power of draught or fineness of wool. Bake- 
 well was the agricultural opportunist who saw the impending change, 
 and knew how it should be met. By providing meat for the million, 
 he contributed as much to the wealth of the country as Arkwright 
 or Watt. There is some foundation for the statement that many 
 monuments have been reared in Westminster Abbey to the memory 
 of men who less deserved the honour than Robert Bakewell. 
 
 Cart-horses also shared BakeweU's attention. Before his day 
 principles of breeding had been little studied except in the interests 
 of sport. In the reign of Richard 11. the principal breeding counties 
 had been Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the East and West 
 Ridings of Yorkshire. Men in armour needed big weight-carrying 
 horses. But in the fifteenth century, horses, like the rest of English 
 live-stock, seem to have dwindled in size. The legislature was 
 alarmed ; Henry Vlll. attempted to improve their height by the 
 importation of the best foreign breeds, and by sumptuary laws 
 which prescribed the number and height of the horses that were 
 to be kept by various classes of his subjects. Elizabeth's introduc- 
 tion of coaches created a new need ; if the invention of gunpowder 
 and the disuse of armour displaced the " great horse " in war, he 
 found a new place between the shafts. Shakespeare's plays 
 illustrate some of the changes which approximated the Stewart 
 standard of horse-flesh to modem ideals. The courser, which in 
 
182 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 time of war had endured " the shock of wrathful iron arms," ^ and 
 in peace was the " foot-cloth " horse,* and three times stumbled 
 under Lord Hastings,' gives place to the " prince of palfreys " 
 who " trots the air " and makes the earth sing as he touches it with 
 his elastic tread.* As highways improved, travellers journeyed 
 more easily and more often. The ambling roadster, whose artificial 
 gait was comparatively easy, was supplanted by the hack ; the 
 coach-horse and the waggon-horse began to dispute the monopoly 
 of the liuubering " great horse " and the pack-horse. Sport was 
 also adapting itself to the changing conditions of society. Racing 
 and hunting became fashionable. Though Shakespeare had heard 
 
 " of riding wagers, 
 When horses have been nimbler than the sands 
 That run i' the clock's behalf." ' 
 
 and was aware that " switch and spur " ® were plied in a " wild- 
 goose chase " on the Cotswold Hills, he knew nothing of the modem 
 race-course. Races, then, were trials rather of endurance than of 
 speed. Nor was pace much needed in Tudor hunting ; a " good 
 continuer," ^ or, as we might say, a good stayer, was more necessary. 
 In coursing the hare, only the greyhounds must be fleeter than 
 " poor Wat." The red deer was followed by hounds " slow of 
 pursuit " * and by men armed with leaping-poles, except on those 
 rare occasions when the great hart was hunted " at force." At 
 hawkings, unless the long-winged peregrine flew down wind, horse- 
 men were not pushed to the gallop ; the short-winged goshawk 
 exacted from his pursuers no turn of speed. But as agriculture 
 advanced, the red deer's covert was destroyed, and his extermination 
 demanded as an inveterate foe to the crops. So, too, the sport of 
 falconry was doomed, when hedgerows and enclosures displaced 
 the broad expanse of open-fields, and the partridge no longer 
 cowered in the stubble by the edge of the turf-balk under the 
 tinkling bells of the " towering " falcon.* Another beast of the 
 chase and other means of capture were needed. Shakespeare stood 
 on " no quillets how to slay " i" a fox with snares and gins. But 
 
 1 Bic. I J. Act i. So. 3, L 136. > 2 Ben. VI. Act iv. So. 7, L 62. 
 > Ric. III. Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 83. 
 
 IHen. V. Act iii. Sc. 7, 1. 17. Comp. also Fen. amd Ad. st. 60, where 
 Blondevill is closely copied. 
 
 • Cymh. Act iii. Sc. 2, 11. 72-4. * Bom. and Jul. Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 75. 
 ' Much Ado, Act i. Sc. 1, 1. 149. ' Mid. N. D. Act iv. So. 1, 1. 129. 
 
 • Macb. Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 12. >• 2 Hen. VI. Act iii. So. 1, 1. 261. 
 
HORSES FOR " COURSE, CHASE, WAR, OR TRAVEL " 183 
 
 the fox was no foe to crops ; hedgerows only added zest to his 
 pursuit ; the new sport satisfied the new conditions, and demanded 
 the prodaction of the modem hunter. 
 
 The seventeenth century saw some of the conditions created 
 which have developed the various types in horses of to-day. James 
 I. reduced racing to rules ; Charles I. estabUshed races at New- 
 market ; Oliver Cromwell kept his stud ; Charles 11. introduced the 
 "Royal Mares." Changes in the art of war demanded a lighter 
 and more active cavalry. Pox-himting had become a passion with 
 the country gentry. Coaches travelled more rapidly. Oxen were 
 less used on the farm. During the same century, foreign breeds 
 were extensively imported. Arabs were favourites of James I. 
 But the authority of the Duke of Newcastle, who disliked the breed, 
 was paramount ia matters of horse-flesh.^ Barbs, or Turks were 
 preferred till the Grodolphin and Darley Arabians proved worthy 
 rivals to the Byerly Turk. Other breeds were largely imported 
 from Naples, Sardinia, Spain, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Flanders, 
 and Libya. So great was the admixture of blood, that Bradley, 
 writing in 1727, thinks the true-bred English horse hardly exists, 
 " unless we may account the Horses to be such that are bred wild 
 in some of our Forests and among the Mountains." * Horses 
 intended for " the Course, the Chase, War or Travel " were already 
 carefully studied. But horses for faria use were as yet despised. 
 De Grey ^ speaks with contempt of horses for the cart, the plough, 
 the pack-saddle, and Bradley ignores them altogether. 
 
 It was with the heavy Black-horse of the Midland counties that 
 Bakewell conducted his experiments. The breed had long been 
 known, and had doubtless helped to supply mounts to mediaeval 
 knights. Early in the eighteenth century the breed had been 
 improved by the importation of six Zealand mares. But the long 
 back and long thick hairy legs were still characteristic. Defoe 
 speaks of the Leicestershire horse as the " largest in England, being 
 generally the great black Coach-Horses and Dray-Horses, of which 
 so great a Number are continually brought up to London." Bake- 
 well's object was to correct the type to that which was best suited 
 
 > Me(hode et Invention NouveUe de dresser les Chevaux (1668). Kew- 
 castle's experiments were made -with Barbs. The Duke also published in 
 1667 A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, etc. 
 
 * OenUeman and Partners Quids, p. 249. 
 
 * The CompUat Horseman and Expert Ferrier, by Thomas de Orey (6th ed. 
 1684), p. 8. 
 
184 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 for draft. Strength and activity rather than height and weight 
 were his aim. In his hands the Black Horse developed a thick 
 short carcase on clean short legs. Marshall, who visited Dishley 
 in 1784, grows enthusiastic over " the grandeur and symmetry of 
 form " displayed in the stallion named K. " He was, in reality, 
 the fancied war-horse of the German painters ; who, in the luxuri- 
 ance of imagination, never perhaps excelled the grandeur of this 
 horse." The Midland horses were generally sold as two-year-olds 
 to the farmers of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, and 
 Wiltshire, who broke them into harness, worked them lightly on 
 the land, and sold them at five or six to London dealers. The 
 practice may account for some of the extravagant plough-teams, 
 which agricultural writers of the eighteenth century often notice 
 and condemn. 
 
 Bom in 1725, Bakewell was barely twenty when he began his 
 experiments in stock-breeding. He succeeded to the sole manage- 
 ment of his father's farm in 1760. Ten years later, when Arthur 
 Young, armed with an introduction from the Marquis of Rockingham, 
 visited Dishley, Bakewell must have somewhat resembled the 
 typical English yeoman who figures on jugs of Staffordshire 
 pottery : "a tall, broad-shouldered, stout man of brown-red com- 
 plexion, clad in a loose brown coat, scarlet waistcoat, leather 
 breeches, and top-boots." Visitors from all parts of the world 
 assembled to see his farm — his water-canals, his plough-team of 
 cows, his irrigated meadows on which mowers were busy from May 
 to Christmas, and, above all, his Uve-stock — his famous black 
 stallion, his buU " Two-penny," and his ram " Two-pounder." All 
 who came were astonished at the results which they saw, at the 
 docility of the animals, at the kindness with which they were 
 treated. But, if they hoped to learn from Bakewell's Ups the 
 principles which are now the axioms of stock-breeding, they went 
 away disappointed. He was a keen man of business. The secrets 
 of his success were jealously guarded, except from the old shepherd 
 to whom they were confided. So careful was he to keep the lead 
 in his own hands that he adopted the practice of only letting his 
 staJlions, bulls, and rams by the season, and, when his best bred 
 sheep were past service and fatted and sold to the butcher, he is 
 said to have infected them with the rot ia order to prevent their 
 use for breeding purposes. So reports Artiiur Young.^ Round 
 
 ^ Farmere Tow thrpugh the East of England (1771), vol. i. p. 118. 
 
"SMALL IN SIZE, GREAT IN VALUE" 185 
 
 the hall of his house were arranged skeletons of his most celebrated 
 animals ; from the walls hung joints, preserved in pickle, which 
 illustrated such points as smaUness of bone or thickness of fat. As 
 there was no inn in the vUlage, he seems to have kept open house 
 for his visitors. He was never married. In his kitchen he enter- 
 tained Russian princes, French and Grerman royal dukes, British 
 peers, and sightseers of every degree. Yet he never altered the 
 routine of his daily life. " Breakfast at eight ; dinner at one ; 
 supper at nine ; bed at eleven o'clock ; at half-past ten, let who 
 would be there, he knocked out his last pipe." Very large sums of 
 money passed through his hands. Yet, if the entry in the GenUe- 
 man'e Magazine ^ refers to him, he was bankrupt in 1776, and so 
 lavish was his hospitaUty that he is said to have died in poverty.^ 
 
 In the treatment of live-stock for the butcher BakeweU's object 
 was to breed animals which weighed heaviest ia the best joints 
 and most quickly repaid the cost of the food they consumed. He 
 sought to discover the animal which was the best machine for 
 turning food into money. " Small in size and great in value," 
 or the Holkham toast of " Symmetry well covered," was the motto 
 of his experiments. In his view the essentials were the valuable 
 joints, and he swept away as non-essentials all the points on which 
 fashion or prejudice had hitherto concentrated, such as head, neck, 
 horn, leg, or colour. The points which he wished to develop and 
 perpetuate were beauty combined with utility of form, quality of 
 flesh, and propensity to fatness. To attain these objects he struck 
 out a new line for himself. Crossing was then understood to mean 
 the mixture of two aUen breeds, one of which was relatively inferior. 
 Bakewell adopted a different principle, because he regarded this 
 form of crossing as an adulteration rather than as an improvement. 
 He bred in-and-in, using not merely animals of the same native 
 breed and line of descent, but of the same family. He thus secured 
 the union of the finest specimens of the breed which he had chosen 
 as the best, selected for the possession of the points which he 
 wished to reproduce or strengthen. 
 
 ^ In the Oent. Mag. for Nov. 1776, appears the following entry in the list 
 of bankrupts : " B. Bakewell, Dishley, Leicestersh. dealer." (p. 531). 
 
 * Other contemporary references to Bakewell, besides those quoted, will 
 be found in the Oent. Mag. vols. bdii. pt. ii. p. 792, and Ixv. pt. ii. pp. 969-70 ; 
 Marshall's Midland Counties, voL i. pp. 292-493 etc. ; Annah of Agrioulture, 
 voL vi. (1786), pp. 466-98 ; Arthur Young's Huabandry of Three Famout 
 Farmers (1811) ; George Culley's Observations on Live Stock (1786). 
 
186 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 It was with sheep that Bakewell achieved his greatest success. 
 When he began his stock-breeding experiments, he selected his 
 fiheep from the best animals in the neighbourhood, and a guinea, 
 or even half a guinea, secured HiTn his choice from the fold. The 
 breed from which they were chosen were the Leicestershire or 
 
 Warwickshire long wools. The " true old Warwickshire ram " is 
 
 thus described by Marshall in 1789 : " His frame large, and remark- 
 ably loose. His bone, throughout, heavy. His legs long and 
 thick, terminating in large splaw feet. His chine, as well as his 
 romp, as sharp as a hatchet. His skin might be said to rattle upon 
 his ribs . . . like a skeleton wrapped in parchment." Even this 
 animal -was handsomer than a ram of the " true old Leicestershire 
 sort," which Marshall saw in 1784. " A naturalist," he says, 
 " would have found some difficulty in classing him ; and, seeing 
 him on a mountain, might have deemed him a nondescript ; a 
 something between a sheep and a goat." Out of these unpromising 
 materials Bakewell succeeded in creating a new variety. His " new 
 Leicesters " became the most profitable sheep for arable farmers. 
 As by degrees the compactness of form, smaUness of bone, fattening 
 propensities, and early maturity were perpetuated, the breed was 
 established, and for a time swept all competitors before them. 
 While other breeds required three or four years to fit them for 
 market, the New Leicesters were prepared in two. Those who 
 tried the Dishley sheep found that they throve where others pined, 
 that while aUve they were the hardiest, and when dead the heaviest. 
 In 1750 Bakewell let rams for the season at 16s. or 17s. 6d. apiece. 
 In 1789 he let none under 20 guineas, and received 3000 guineas 
 for the total of that season's letting. The New Leicesters were 
 the first breed of sheep which were scientifically treated in England, 
 and though they were less adapted for the southern, eastern, and 
 northern counties, their supremacy on enclosed land in their own 
 Midland districts was undisputed. 
 
 Bakewell raised the New Leicesters to the highest })erfection. 
 But this was not all. His breed in weight of fleece could not com- 
 pete with Idncolns, and was less suited to hills or mountains than 
 for enclosed arable land. He had, however, shown the way in 
 which other breeds might be improved ; imitation was easy. In a 
 less immediate sense he was the creator, not only of the New 
 Leicesters, but of the improved Lincolns, South Downs and Cheviots. 
 Before these breeds, fitted for the most fertile grasslands and plains 
 
LEICESTER SHEEP AND CATTLE 187 
 
 as well as suited to hills and mountains, native races died away, 
 like Red TTiflin.Tm before the civilised intruders. But gradually 
 supporters raUied round other varieties. Bakewell's weapons were 
 turned against himself. Native sheep of other districts, improved 
 on his principles, began to hold their own, and, though on historical 
 grounds precedence wOI always be given to the New Leicesters and 
 the South Downs (improved by John Ellman of Glynde, 1753-1832), 
 it may be questioned whether they have not been rivalled and sur- 
 passed by other breeds in the qualities for which they were once 
 pre-eminent. 
 
 Li cattle-breeding BakeweU was less successful. It was his 
 material not his system which failed. He endeavoured to found 
 his typical race on the Lancashires or Craven Longhoms, which were 
 the favourite cattle in Leicestershire, and, in his opinion, the best 
 breed in England. He based his improvements on the labours of 
 two of his predecessors. Sir Thomas Gresley of Drakelow, near 
 Burton-on-Trent, began about 1720 the formation of a herd of 
 Longhoms. On this Drakelow blood Webster of Canley, near 
 Coventry, worked, and to his breed aU the improved Longhoms 
 traced their descent. BakeweU founded his experiments on a 
 Westmoreland bull and two heifers from the Canley herd. To 
 them he applied the same principles which he followed in sheep- 
 breeding, and with great success. As graziers' stock, the breed 
 was greatly improved. But as milkers, the new Longhoms were 
 deteriorated by their increased propensity to fatness. In a county 
 like Leicestershire, which depended not only on feeding stock but 
 on dairy produce,^ this poverty of milking quality was a fatal objec- 
 tion. Even in his Longhoms BakeweU did not long retain the 
 lead. It soon passed away from him to Fowler of BoUright, in 
 Oxfordshire. But the breed itself was beaten by one which 
 possessed superior natural quaUties. Almost throughout England 
 the Durham Shorthorns, founded on the Holdemess and Tees- 
 water cattle, jumped into the first place, as the best rent-payers, 
 both as milkers and meat-producers. The Ketton herd of Charles 
 Colling became to cattle-breeders what BakeweU's Dishley flock of 
 
 ' Mrs. Paulet of Wymondham, in the Melton district of Leicestershiie, is 
 said to have been the first maker of Stilton cheeses. She supplied them to 
 Cooper Thomhill, who kept the Bell Inn at Stilton (Hunts) on the great 
 norih road from London to Edinburgh, and they became famous among his 
 customers, and throughout England. The manufacture of Stilton cheeses 
 became an industry of the district. Mrs. Paulet vras still living in 1780. 
 
188 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 
 
 New Leicesters were to sheep-masters. It was as necessary for a 
 superior Shorthorn to claim descent from Colhng's bull " Hubback " 
 as for a race-horse to boast the blood of the Godolphin Arabian. 
 From " Hubback " was descended the famous Durham ox, which 
 travelled through England in a specially constructed carriage from 
 1801 to 1810, exhibiting to the eyes of thousands of farmers a truer 
 standard of shape than any their ancestors had conceived, and con- 
 vincing them by personal interviews of the excellence of the improved 
 breed. The example was followed in many parts of the country. 
 Other breeds, notably the Herefords and North Devons, were 
 similarly improved. The formation of herds became a favourite 
 pursuit of wealthy landlords. Flora Maclvor herself might have 
 lived to see the day, when coimtry gentlemen could become breeders 
 of cattle, without being " boorish two-legged steers like Killan- 
 cureit." 
 
 Bakewell's success and the rapidly increasing demand for butcher's 
 meat raised up a host of imitators. Breeders everywhere followed 
 his example ; his standard of excellence was gradually recognised. 
 The foundation of the Smithfield Club in 1798 did much to promote 
 the improvement of Uve-stock. Some idea of the effect produced 
 may be gathered from the average weights of sheep and cattle sold 
 at Smithfield Market in 1710 and in 1795. In 1710 the average 
 weights for beeves was 370 lbs., for calves 50 lbs., for sheep 28 lbs., 
 for lambs 18 lbs. In 1795 beeves had risen in average weight to 
 800 lbs., calves to 148 lbs., sheep to 80 lbs., lambs to 50 Ibs.^ This 
 enormous addition to the meat supply of the country, was due 
 partly to the efforts of agriculturists like Tull, Townshend, Bake- 
 well, and others, partly to the enclosure of open-fields and com- 
 mons which their improvements encouraged. On open-fields and 
 commons, owing mainly to the scarcity of winter keep, the live- 
 stock was dwarfed in size and weight. Even if the number of 
 animals which might be grazed on the commons was regulated by 
 custom, the stint was often so large that the pasture could only 
 cany the smallest animals. Where the grazing rights were 
 unlimited, as seems to have been not unusually the case in the 
 eighteenth century, the herbage was necessarily still more im- 
 poverished, and the size of the Uve-stock more stunted. On 
 
 * Sir John Sinclair's note for the use of the Select Parliamentary Committee 
 appointed in 179S to consider " the Waste, UninoloBed and unproductive 
 Lands of the Kingdom." Appendix B, section 1, pp. 17, note. Sir John is ^ 
 not, however, always a reliable witness. 
 
MUTTON VERSUS WOOL 189 
 
 enclosed land, on the other hand, the introduction of turnip and 
 clover husbandry doubled the number and weight of the stock which 
 the land would carry, and the early maturity of the improved breeds 
 enabled farmers to fatten them more expeditiously. But one of 
 the consequences of this change in sheep-farming was not at first 
 foreseen. The wool was sacrificed to the mutton. A large sheep 
 paid better than a small. But as the size of the animal increased, 
 its fleece grew heavier, and the staple longer. The supply of fine 
 fleeces from the Ught, poorly-fed, short-wooled sheep of the com- 
 mons diminished so rapidly that, before the end of the century, a 
 new classification of sheep was introduced. Instead of being 
 divided into long wools and short wools, they were now classified 
 as long wools and middle wools. Improvements in machinery and 
 the introduction of new fabrics utilised the produce of the heavier 
 breeds of sheep ; but, for the better kinds of cloth, home manufac- 
 turers became increasingly dependent on foreign suppUes of short 
 wool, brought from Spain, Saxony, and New South Wales. A 
 change of fashion intensified the need of wool for a finer quaUty 
 of cloth than could be obtained in this country. The coarser 
 fabrics of manufacture from English material, which had contented 
 our ancestors, could not retain their hold on the home or foreign 
 markets. During the Napoleonic wars, the fuU effect of this change 
 in the raw material of woollen manufactures was concealed by the 
 suspension of continental rivalry. When peace was finally pro- 
 claimed, it was at once felt. A pitched battle began between the 
 manufacturer and the agriculturist ; the one demanded the free 
 import of foreign short wool, the other the free export of English 
 long wools, which made better prices abroad. Each resisted the 
 demand of the other. Home manufacturers opposed the free export 
 of British long-wools, because they feared the competition of 
 foreign cloth. British farmers opposed the free import of foreign 
 short wool, because they dreaded lest its introduction would force 
 down the price of their home produce. Finally, in 1826, Lord Liver- 
 pool's government took off the duties both on the import and the 
 export of the raw material. To advocates of enclosiures, the last 
 agricultural defence of the open-field farmer and commoner seemed 
 to be destroyed, when the removal of the import duty deprived the 
 fleeces of their halt-starved sheep of all artificial advantages over 
 the finer and cheaper wools of foreign countries. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ARTHUR YOUNG AND THE DIFFUSION OF 
 KNOWLEDGE. 1760-1800. 
 
 The counties distingviished for the best fanning : Hertfordshire, Essex, Sufiolk, 
 Norfolk, Leicestershire : the low general standard ; Arthur Young ; his 
 crusade against bad farming, and the hindrances to progress ; waste 
 land ; the " Goths and Vandals " of open-field farmers : want of capital 
 and education ; insecurity of tenure ; prejudices and traditional practices ; 
 impassable roads ; rapid development of manufacture demands a change 
 of agricultural front : Young's advocacy of capitalist landlords and large 
 tenant-farmers. 
 
 DuEiNG the first three quarters of the eighteenth century many 
 advances had been made in the theory, and some in the practice, of 
 agriculture. Alternations of crops and the management of live- 
 stock were better understood. But progress was still confined to 
 localities, if not to individuals. Only in such counties as Hertford- 
 shire, Essex, Sufiolk, Norfolk, and Leicestershire was a fair standard 
 of farming generally established. The superior enterprise of these 
 favoured districts was due to various causes, and was displayed in 
 different directions. 
 
 Without any special fertility of soil, Hertfordshire had for the 
 last hundred years enjoyed the reputation of being the best com 
 county in England. To some extent it owed its superiority to the 
 neighbourhood of London. But Middlesex, which shared the same 
 advantage, was relatively backward. In Hertfordshire roads were 
 above the average. In Middlesex turnpike roads, in spite of a 
 large revenue from tolls, are described as " very bad." On the 
 main road from Tyburn to Uxbridge, in the winter of 1797-8, there 
 was but " one passable track, and that was less than six feet wide, 
 and was eight inches deep in fluid mud. All the rest of the road 
 was from a foot to eighteen inches deep in adhesive mud." Hert- 
 fordshire, which had been to a great extent covered with forest. 
 
HERTFORDSHIRE FARMING 191 
 
 contained, at the close of the eighteenth century, few open-field 
 farms and an inconsiderable area of commons, which were practi- 
 cally confined to the chalk districts in the north of the county. In 
 Middlesex, on the other hand, 17,000 a«res, or one-tenth of the 
 county, were commons, and, out of 23,000 arable acres, 20,000 were 
 cultivated in open-field farms. The neighbourhood of London 
 probably accounts for the predominance of pasture. Hertford- 
 shire had been, for many years, an enclosed county, divided into 
 small estates, and small farms conveniently varied in size. Unlike 
 Middlesex, it was almost entirely arable. Its farmers had at once 
 appreciated the value of turnips and clover, for which the soil was 
 well adapted. Both crops must have been adopted within a few 
 years after their first introduction into the country, if there is any 
 truth in the tradition that Ohver Cromwell paid £100 a year to a 
 Hertfordshire farmer named Howe for their successful cultivation.* 
 Other useful practices were established at an early date. William 
 Ellis of Gaddesden* (died 1758), a Hertfordshire farmer whose 
 writings enjoyed a short-lived popularity, attributed the reputa- 
 tion of " this our celebrated county " to four principal means of 
 improvement : " good ploughings, mixing earths, dunging and 
 dressing, resting the ground with sown grasses." The Hertford- 
 shire men were clean farmers. Their ploughmen were so celebrated 
 that the county was " accounted a Nursery for skill in that Pro- 
 fession." Chalk was largely used on heavy clays, and red clay on 
 sandy or gravelly soUs. Nor were the advantages gained by neigh- 
 bourhood to a great city neglected. London refuse was HberaUy 
 bought and freely employed. Large quantities " of soot, coney- 
 cHppings, Horn-shavings, Rags, Hoofs-hajr, ashes " were purchased 
 from " Mr. Atkins in Tummill-Street near Clerkenwd." To these 
 were added, when Walker * wrote his report on the county, bones — 
 boiled or burned — sheep-trotters, and malt-dust. Great numbers 
 of sheep were also folded, mostly bought at Tring Fair from West- 
 country drovers. But the peculiar practice of Hertfordshire 
 farmers, in which EUis took the greatest pride, was the sowing of 
 tares on the turnip fallows as green fodder for horses in May. 
 
 '■ Oeneral View of the Agriculture of Hertfordshire, by Arthur Young (1804), 
 p. 65. 
 
 * E.g. ChiUem and Vale Farming explained (1733) ; The Modem Huaband- 
 man, 8 vols. (1760). 
 
 • OeriercU View of the AgrieuUwre of the County of Hertford, by D. Walker 
 (1796). 
 
192 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Young (1770) states that, while in other counties the land lay idle, 
 these crops fed five horses to the acre for a month, at 2s. 6d. each a 
 week. It was on these crops that Hertfordshire farmers reared the 
 horses which they bought as two-year-olds in Leicestershire. Yet 
 at the begiiming of the nineteenth century the example had been 
 rarely followed in other counties. 
 
 Suffolk and Essex also afforded good examples of the best EngUsh 
 farming as it was practised at the close of the eighteenth century. 
 Both counties had, as a whole, been enclosed for many years. Only 
 on the poor and chalky soil of the north-western district had open- 
 fields held their own. As early as 1618,^ East Suffolk and Mid 
 Suffolk were enclosed, and only " the westeme parts ether wholly 
 champion or neer." In both counties yeomanry abounded, and 
 in Essex the class was in 1807 stiH increasing. " For twenty 
 or thirty years past scarcely an estate is sold, if divided into 
 lots of forty or fifty to two or three hundred a year but is purchased 
 by farmers."* Both counties were centres of manufacturing 
 industries, and in addition enjoyed the advantage of access to a 
 great market. Suffolk suppHed London with butter, Essex with 
 calves, for which it had been famous in the seventeenth century. 
 In both counties large quantities of manure were now used on the 
 land. Farmers were not always so energetic. Under a lease of 
 1753 a tenant of the Suffolk manor of Hawsted was allowed two 
 shillings for every load of manure which he brought from Bury and 
 laid on the land. In a tenancy of twenty-one years only one load 
 was charged to the landlord. Sixty years later, agriculturists had 
 become more energetic. On the Ught sands of East Suffolk, marl 
 and a calcareous shelly mixture of phosphates called " crag " were 
 freely employed as fertilisers. Chalk from the Kentish quarries 
 for use on the cla;^, as well as London refuse, were purchased by 
 Essex farmers, conveyed by sea up the estuaries, and thence dis- 
 tributed in the county. Probably this trafl&c partly explains the 
 condition of the Essex roads, which were as bad as the Suffolk 
 highways were good. In both counties hollow drainage was 
 practised earlier than elsewhere. The drains were wedge-shaped, 
 filled with branches, twisted straw, or stone, and covered in with 
 earth. Bradley * speaks of the " Essex practice " of making drains 
 
 1 Breviary of Suffolk, by Robert Reyce, 1618, edited by Lord F. Hervey, 1902. 
 " North-East Eaaex, by Arthur Young (1807), vol. i. p. 40. 
 > Complete Body of Httsbandry (1727), p. 133-4. 
 
ESSEX AKD SUFFOLK 193 
 
 two feet deep, at close and regular intervak throughout a whole 
 field, filled with rubble or bushes, and he derives the term " thorough- 
 drainage " from an Essex word " thorow," meaning a trench to 
 cany ofE the water. Ploughing was in both counties economically 
 conducted. The Suffolk swing-plough, drawn by two horses, was 
 the common implement. Oxen were seldom used : "no groaning 
 ox is doomed to labour there " is the evidence of Bloomfield. 
 Turnips and clover were firmly established as arable crops. Suffolk 
 had been for two centuries famous for its field cultivation of carrots. 
 Cabbages were a later introduction, but extensively grown. Hemp 
 was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Beccles, and hops flourished 
 round Saxmundham. In Essex a peculiar crop, grown, generally 
 together, on the same land for three years in succession, consisted 
 of caraway, coriander, and teazels. The teazels were bought by 
 woollen manufacturers, and fixed in a revolving cylinder to catch 
 the surface of bays, says, etc., and so raise the nap of cloth to the 
 required length. Suffolk was also famous for its live-stock. The 
 Suffolk Punch was a short compact horse of about fifteen hands 
 high, properly of a sorrel colour, unrivalled in its power of draught, 
 though, as Cullum wrote in 1790, " not made to indulge the rapid 
 impatience of this posting generation." In the dairy the " milch 
 kine " of Suffolk are said by Beyce (1618) to be as good as in any 
 other county, and he notes the beauty of their horns. In later 
 times the Suffolk Dun was renowned for the quantity of her milk. 
 Suffolk cheese, however, had an evil reputation. It was " so hard 
 that pigs grunt at it, dogs bark at it, but none dare bite it." The 
 mystery of its interior inspired Bloomfield to sing of the substance, 
 which 
 
 " Mocks the 'weitk efiort of the bending blade, 
 Or in the hog-trough rests in perfect spite. 
 Too big to swallow and too hard to bite." 
 
 As the eighteenth century drew to a close, it was to Norfolk and 
 to Leicestershire that men had begun to look for the best examples 
 of arable and pasture farming. In both counties progress had been 
 largely due to the character of the farmers, and in Norfolk to the 
 alertness and industry of the labourers. In Norfolk, Marshall 
 (1787) says that farmers were " strongly marked by a liberality of 
 thinking," that they were men who had " mixed with what is called 
 the World, of which their leases render them independent . . . 
 occupying the same position in society as the clergy and smaller 
 
 N 
 
194 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 squires." Many of them had prospered enough to buy their 
 holdings, and to add to them " numerous small estates of the 
 yeomanry." Nor is this surprising in view of the productiveness 
 of their land under the Norfolk system of husbandry. At the end 
 of the eighteenth century the average annual number of live-stock 
 sent from the county to Smithfield was 20,000 cattle and 30,000 
 sheep. It was also stated in 1795, that as much com was exported 
 from the four Norfolk ports of Yarmouth, Lynn, Wells, and Blake- 
 ney, as was sent abroad from the whole of the rest of England. In 
 Leicestershire, again, " yeomanry of the higher class " abounded. 
 " Men cultivating their own estates of two, three, four or five 
 hundreds a year are thickly scattered over almost every part of 
 the country " ; they had " travelled much and mixed constantly 
 with one another." In both Leicestershire and Norfolk the special 
 branches of farming which were generally followed brought agri- 
 culturists into contact with their rivals, compelled them to be 
 wide-awake, and sharpened their intelligence. Both were occupied 
 in fattening stock for town markets, the Leicestershire men on 
 pasture breeding their own stock, the Norfolk farmers on arable 
 land buying their cattle from Scottish drovers. In one important 
 respect there was a vtide difference in their development. In Nor- 
 folk, great landowners, Uke Lord Townshend and, later, Coke of 
 Norfolk, took the lead in improvement, tested for the benefit of 
 their tenants the value of the new arable methods, encouraged them 
 by long leases to follow their example, and by high rents made 
 imitation compulsory. In Leicestershire, on the other hand, large 
 landlords were few and had given no lead ; the example was set by 
 large tenant-farmers or substantial yeomen. 
 
 Other coimties had adopted other useful practices which had 
 scarcely spread beyond their borders. Thus Lancashire excelled 
 in the cultivation of potatoes ; Middlesex was celebrated for the 
 art and practice of haymaking ; Wiltshire for the irrigation and 
 treatment of water-meadows ; Cheshire for its management of 
 dairy produce ; Yorkshire farmers round ShefiGleld had tested the 
 value of bone-dust, many years before the value of the manure 
 was known in other districts. But there is some evidence that 
 other counties had rather fallen back than advanced. This is 
 especially true of Cambridgeshire, which enjoyed the reputation of 
 being the worst cultivated county in England. It will probably be 
 true to say that the country as a whole had made no general advance 
 
ARTHUR YOUNG 195 
 
 on the agriculture of the thirteenth century. The stagnation was 
 mainly due to the prevalence of wastes, the system of open-field 
 fanning, the risk of loss of capital in improvements made under 
 tenancies-at-wiU, the poverty and ignorance of hand-to-mouth 
 farmers, the obstinacy of traditionary practices, the want of mar- 
 kets, and difficulties of communication. Till these obstacles were 
 to some extent overcome, agricultural progress could not become 
 general. It is with the removal of these hindrances that the name 
 of Arthur Young is inseparably connected. 
 
 Bom in London in 1741, Arthur Young was the younger son of 
 the Rev. Arthur Young, who owned a small estate of 200 acres at 
 Bradfield in Suffolk. From his father he inherited his literary 
 tastes, a habit of negligence in money matters, and ultimately a 
 landed property. Out of Lavenham School he passed, at the age 
 of seventeen, into a wine merchant's office at Ljmn. A youthful 
 fop and gallant, he there began his hterary career in order to pay 
 for books and clothes. Before he was nineteen, he had published 
 four novels and two poUtical pamphlets. On his father's death in 
 1759, he abandoned trade for literature, and Lynn for London, 
 where he launched a monthly magazine called The Universal 
 Museum, which only ran for six months. The venture was unpro- 
 fitable. Without profession or employment, he drifted back, in 
 1763, to his mother's home at Bradfield, married, and settled down 
 to farming as a business. As a practical farmer he failed, and the 
 impression left by his writings is that he always would have done 
 so. On three farms, which he took in rapid succession, he lost 
 money. Meanwhile he was succeeding better as a writer. Books 
 and pamphlets flowed from his pen with prodigious rapidity, and 
 his income was considerable. In 1767 he began those farming 
 tours, in the course of which he drew his graphic sketches of rural 
 England, Ireland, and France.* His careless ease of style, his racy 
 forcible English, his gift of happy phrases, his quick observation, 
 his wealth of miscellaneous detail, make him the first of English 
 agricultural writers. Apart from the value of the facts which they 
 
 ' A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales 
 (1768) ; A Six Months' Tour through the North of England (1770), 4 vols. ; 
 The Farmer's Tour through the East of England (1771), 4 vols. ; Tour in 
 Ireland, 1776-7-8 (1780), 2 vols. ; Travela dtiring the Tears 1787, '88, '89 and 
 1790, undertaken more Particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cultivation, 
 WetUth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France (1792-4), 
 2 vols. 
 
196 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 contain, his tours, with their fresh woid-pictures, their gossip, their 
 personal incidents, and even their irrelevancies, have the charm 
 of private diaries. His Ireland was described by Maria Edgeworth 
 as " the first faithful portrait of the inhabitants," and his Frcmce 
 was recognised by Tocqueville as a first-hand authority on the rural 
 conditions of the country on the eve of the Revolution. In 1784 
 he began his Annals of Agriculture, a monthly publication to which 
 George m., under the name of his shepherd at Windsor, " Ralph 
 Robinson," occasionally contributed. The magazine was con- 
 tinued till 1809, when, owing to failing eyesight, Yoimg discon- 
 tinued its publication. He had written more than a quarter of 
 the forty-six volumes himself. 
 
 Toung had now succeeded, on the death of his mother in 1785, 
 to the Bradfield estate, his elder brother having broken his neck 
 in the hunting-field. TTia Travels in France show that he sym- 
 pathised with the peasants in their early efforts to free themselves 
 from the ancien rigime. But the subsequent course of the Revolu- 
 tion filled him with horror. In 1793, he wrote an effective 
 pamphlet on The Example of France a Warning to Great BrUain, 
 urged the formation of a " militia of property," and himself joined 
 the Suffolk yeomanry. In the same year Pitt established the Board 
 of Agriculture, with Sir John Sinclair as President. Arthur Young 
 was appointed Secretary with a salary of £400 a year and, later, 
 an official residence in Sackville Street, London. One of the first 
 objects of the Board was to collect information respecting the 
 agricultural conditions of each county. For this purpose Com- 
 missioners were appointed. They were not always wisely selected ; 
 but for this choice, against which Young protested, the President 
 was responsible. Their Reports were severely criticised by William 
 Marshall ^ (1745-1818), an embittered, disappointed man, who had 
 
 > Maisball's General Survey ...ofthe Rwral Economy of England haa been 
 frequently quoted. His valuable records fill twelve volumes published 
 between 1787 and 1798, two volumes being allotted to each of the six depart- 
 ments into which he divides the coimtry : (1) the Eastern : Norfolk, 2 vols. 
 (1787) ; (2) the Northern : Yorkshire, 2 vols. (1788) ; (3) the West Central : 
 OUnuietterahire, North WiUa, and Herefordehire, 2 vols. (1789) ; (4) the Mid- 
 land : LeieeitartMre, etc., 2 vols. (1790) ; (6) the Western : Devonahire and 
 parts of Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, and Cornwall, 2 vols. (1796) ; (6) the 
 Southern : Kera, Surrey, Stusex and Hampshire, 2 vols. (1798). Of the first 
 ten volumes a second edition was published in 1796. A second edition of the 
 Southern volumes was published in 1799, with the prefix of a sketch of the 
 V(Ue of London. 
 
 Marshall has none of the charm of Young. He is a heavy, didtustic writer. 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE MOVEMENT 197 
 
 himself originally suggested the establishment of the Board and 
 the compilation of the surveys. But, with all their faults, the 
 reporters coUected a mass of valuable information on the state of 
 fanning from 1793 to 1813. Six of the surveys were by Young 
 himself,* and his Report on Oxfordshire was almost his last literary 
 work. 
 
 Young was a man of strong prejudices. He was also wanting in 
 power of generalisation. But he worked untiringly for what he 
 believed to be the progress of good farming. On this object were 
 concentrated the chief labours of his Ufe — his enquiries, experi- 
 ments, researches, his collections of statistics, his notes of useful 
 practices, his observations on new methods. His eager face, with 
 its keen eyes and aquiline features, expressed the vivacity of his 
 temperament, just as his tall slender figure indicated the restless 
 activity of his body. A gay and charming companion, his enthusi- 
 asms were infectious. He was the soul and inspiration of the 
 progressive movement. To him, more than to any other individual, 
 were due the dissemination of new ideas on farming, the diffusion 
 of the latest results of observation and experiment, the creation 
 of new agencies for the interchange of experiences, the establish- 
 ment of farmers' clubs, ploughing matches, and agricultural societies 
 and shows. His married life was not happy ; but Ids wife was not 
 entirely to blame. An affectionate father, his whole heart was 
 given to his youngest daughter (Martha Ann, bom 1783, died 1797) 
 nicknamed " Bobbin." Versailles did not afford him so much 
 pleasure as giving to the child a French doll. Her death broke 
 down his health and spirits. Grief deepened into religious melan- 
 choly. His gloom was intensified by failing eyesight. In 1811 he 
 became totally blind. Nine years later (1820), he died in London. 
 
 When Young began to write on a^culture, vast districts, which 
 might have been profitably cultivated, still lay waste. Of the 
 area already under tillage, a large proportion lay in open-fields. 
 
 Bat his system is better ; his generalisations are more conclusive, and less 
 contradictory ; his facts are better arranged ; he was, also, a better farmer. A 
 zealous collector of " provincialisms " of speech, he gives lists of the local 
 words which he found in use in the Northern, Midland, and West Central 
 departments, and appends them, with a glossary, to the volumes to which they 
 relate. Besides the Sural Boonomy, he published numerous other works, 
 chiefly on agriculture. 
 
 1 Young wrote the Oeneral View of the AgrieiUture of the County of Suffolk 
 (1797), County of Lincoln (1799), of Hertfordshire (1804), of Norfolk (1804), 
 of Etaex, 2 vols. (1807) ; of Oxfordshire (1809). 
 
198 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Under this system, whatever might be the differences or capacities 
 of the soil, the whole of the land, with rare exceptions, was placed 
 under the same unvarying rotation. It was this inability to put 
 land to its best use which especially roused Young's indignation. 
 When he made his Eastern Tour in 1770, he found nearly all the 
 Vale of Aylesbury cultivated in arable open-fields, lying in broad, 
 high, crooked ridges. The course of cropping was (1) Fallow, 
 (2) Wheat or Barley, (3) Beans. The land was ploughed from two 
 to four inches deep, and five horses were used to each plough. 
 Beans were sown broadcast, and never hoed. Drainage was badly 
 needed, for the ridge system had failed. But the lands were so 
 intermixed that any other system was difficult, if not impossible. 
 Even in June, only the tops of the ridges were dry, and, in the 
 winter, most of the land, crops and all, were soaked with water. 
 As a result, the products were as bad as the land was good. The 
 Vale of Aylesbury farmers, whom Ellis (1733) describes as " one 
 of the most obstinate bigotted sort," " reap bushels where they 
 should reap quarters." Both in Buckinghamshire and in Northamp- 
 tonshire, the cow-dung was collected from the fields, mixed with 
 short straw, kneaded into lumps, daubed on the walls of buildings, 
 and, when dry, used as fuel. " There cannot," says Young, " be 
 such an application of manure anywhere but among the Hotten- 
 tots." 1 Naseby Field in 1770 consisted of 6000 acres, all cultivated 
 on the open-field system, on the same course of cropping which 
 Young found established on village farms from the Vale of Ayles- 
 bury to the north of Derbyshire. Bound the mud-built village lay 
 a few pasture enclosures. The three arable fields were crossed and 
 re-(»rossed by paths to the different holdings, filled with a cavernous 
 depth of mire ; the pastures were in a state of nature, overrun 
 with nettles, furze, and rushes. The farm-houses and buildings, 
 sJi collected in the village, were two miles distant from a great part 
 of the fields. When Young visited the village again in 1785, he 
 found that the land in tillage for spring com was " perfectly matted 
 with couch." Marshall, a less prejudiced observer than Young, 
 visited the Vale of Gloucester in 1789. There he found half the 
 arable land unenclosed. Near Gloucester, and in other parts of 
 the district, there were extensive tracts of land, called " Every 
 
 'It was no uncommon practice. Edward Laurence suggests (1727) that 
 " Cow-dung not to be burnt for fuel " should be inserted as a restrictive 
 covenant in all leasee. He mentions Yorkshire and Lincohishire as counties 
 where dung was frequently used as fuel. 
 
THE GOTHS AND VANDALS 199 
 
 Year's Land," which were cropped year after year without any 
 fallows. Only the cleanest farming could have made such a system 
 productive. But here Marshall found beans hidden among mustard 
 growing wild as a weed ; peas choked by poppies and com mari- 
 golds ; every stem of barley fettered with convolvulus ; wheat 
 pining in thickets of couch and thistle. It is not surprising that 
 the yield of wheat was anything from 18 bushels an acre down to 
 12 or 8 bushels. 
 
 Other instances might be quoted to show the general condition 
 of open-field farms. But the system had its champions, even 
 among practical agriculturists, especially if they were flock-masters. 
 It cannot, therefore, always have been characterised by the worst 
 farming. No doubt lower depths might be reached. If severalty 
 made a good farmer better, it also made a bad farmer worse. Nor 
 was the system altogether incapable of improvement. Here and 
 there Young or Marshall alludes to some useful practice adopted 
 on village farms. For instance. Young speaks of the drainage of 
 common pastures by very large ploughs belonging to the parish, 
 cutting 16 inches in depth and the same in width, drawn by 12 
 horses ; of the introduction of clover by common consent into the 
 rotation of crops, or of the adoption of a fourth course insteeid of 
 the old two- or three-shift system. So also Marshall notes the 
 open-field practice of dibbing and hoeing beans in Gloucestershire, 
 where beans commanded a ready market among the Guinea traders 
 of Bristol as food for negro slaves on the voyage from the African 
 coaat to the West Indies. But, speaking generally, any rotation 
 of crops in which roots formed an element was with difficulty 
 introduced on arable land which was pastured in common during 
 the autimm and winter months ; drainage was impracticable on 
 the intermixed lands of village farms ; among the.-underfed, under- 
 sized, and imderbred flocks and herds of the commons the principles 
 of Bakewell could not be followed. That open-field farmers were 
 impervious to new methods is certain. " You might," says Young, 
 " as well recommend to them an Orrery as a hand-hoe." That they 
 had not the capital to carry out costly improvements is also obvious. 
 They could not bring into cultivation the sands of Norfolk, the 
 wolds of Lincolnshire, or the ling-covered Peak of Derbyshire. 
 From a purely agricultural point of view Young's intemperate 
 crusade against village farms was justified, and he had reason on 
 his side when he said that " the Goths and Vandals of open-field 
 
200 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 fanners must die out before any complete change takes place." 
 To some extent the same arguments applied to small farmers 
 occupying their holdings in severalty. " Poverty and ignorance," 
 says Marshall, speaking of the Vale of Pickering in 1787, " are the 
 ordinary inhabitants of small farms ; even the smaller estates of 
 the yeomanry are notorious for bad management." It was on the 
 larger farms that he found the spirit of improvement and the best 
 practice. In Gloucestershire (1789) he looked to the " few men 
 of superior intelligence " to raise the standard of the profession. 
 Nor did enclosures necessarily mean an improvement of methods. 
 In Derbyshire, at the time of Young's tour in 1770, many farmers 
 on new enclosures pursued the same course of cropping to which 
 they had been restricted by the " field constraint " of village farms. 
 Sometimes the landlord, and not the tenant, was the Vandal or the 
 Goth. Thus in Cambridgeshire fanners on freshly enclosed land 
 were bound by their leases to continue the old course of fallow, 
 com, and beans. 
 
 Even when a tenant-farmer possessed both enterprise and capital, 
 the method of land-tenure discouraged improvement. Without 
 some security for his outlay, no tenant could venture to spend 
 money on his land. At the same time he was often expected to 
 make improvements which now are considered the duty of a land- 
 lord and parts of the necessary equipment of a farm. Yet the 
 commonest forms of tenure were lettings from year to year, voidable 
 on either side, as they then were, at six months' notice. In the 
 eafitem counties leases for terms of years, with covenants for 
 management, were in the last half of the century becoming a usual 
 form of letting. But elsewhere long leases were regarded with 
 justifiable suspicion by both parties. Tenants objected to them, 
 because they bound them to take land for a long period before they 
 knew what the land would do, and to make fixed annual payments 
 based on current prices which might not be maintained. Land- 
 lords also objected to them, because they deprived owners of the 
 advantages of a rise in prices, and " told the farmer when he might 
 begin systematically to exhaust the land." Where a good under- 
 standing existed between landlords and tenants, leases were not 
 indispensable. Land was often farmed on verbal agreements. 
 Ordinary tenancies-at-will secured Berkshire and Nottinghamshire 
 farmers in their holdings from generation to generation. Under the 
 same tenancy, on the Duke of Devonshire's estates in Derbyshire, 
 
INSECURITY OF LAND-TENURE 201 
 
 tenants even carried out costly and permanent improvements. 
 Often, however, the uncertainty of this form of tenure checked 
 enterprise ; because of it, also, tenants fell into the routine of the 
 district and plodded along in the beaten track trodden by their 
 ancestors. Sometimes the uncertainty was a real insecurity. 
 Thus, in Yorkshire, in 1787, Marshall notices that confidence 
 between landlord and tenant had been destroyed by successive 
 rises in rents. " Good farming ceased, for fear the fields should 
 look green and the rent be raised." Local rhymes expressed the 
 popular beUef that he " that havocs may sit," while the improving 
 tenant must either pay increased rent or " flit." Leases for Uves 
 were common, especially in the south-western counties. They 
 gave a fixity of tenure ; but they were necessarily, both for tenant 
 and landlord, somewhat of a gambling speculation. Fourteen 
 years' purchase of the rental value was the usual price for a lease 
 of three Uves. The initial outlay crippled the first tenant, and,, 
 only if the lives proved good, was the purchase remunerative. On 
 the other hand, the landlord was often obliged, as the third life 
 drew towards its close, to put himself in as sub-tenant to save his 
 land from exhaustion and his buildings from ruin. Leases for very 
 short terms were not infrequent. On open-field farms in Bedford- 
 shire and Huntingdon the term was three years, in Durham six 
 years, corresponding to the completion of one or two courses of the 
 ordinary three-shift routine. But in the last twenty years of the 
 eighteenth century, leases for 7, 14, and 21 years became more 
 common. Even longer terms were often granted, as the enthusi- 
 asm for improvement extended. Tenants under long leases throve 
 on rents fixed before the high prices during the Napoleonic war ; 
 but after 1813 the position was disastrously reversed. Prudent 
 men had taken their money out. The sufferers were new men, 
 who had enjoyed none of the advantages of the system ; they were 
 its victims, never its beneficiaries. Two of the difficulties by which 
 the tenure is embarrassed were already becoming important, if not 
 burning, questions — ^the compensation for unexhausted improve- 
 ments, and the covenants imposed by landlords. Some of the 
 restrictions imposed by leases were a bar to progress. Leicester- 
 shire graziers, for example, were crippled by the absolute prohibi- 
 tion of arable farming ; they were forced either to sell ofE their 
 stock at Michaelmas when it was cheapest, or to buy winter-keep 
 from Hertfordshire. On the other hand, covenants of a reasonable 
 
202 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 nature proved invaluable in lifting the standard of a stationary 
 agriculture, and raising farming to a higher level. 
 
 Other formidable obstacles to progress lay in the mass of local 
 prejudices and the obstinate adherence to antiquated methods. 
 All over the country there were men like the " round-frocked " 
 farmers of Surrey, who prided themselves on preserving the prac- 
 tices and dress of their forefathers, men of " inflexible honesty," 
 enemies equally to " improvements in agriculture " and to the 
 commercial moraUty of a new generation. Reforming agriculturists 
 no doubt were too ready to ignore the soUd basis of sound sense 
 and experience which often underlay practices that in theory were 
 objectionable. In their excuse it may be urged that their patience 
 was sorely tried. Traditional methods were treasured with jealous 
 care as agricultural heirlooms ; even ocular proof of the superiority 
 of other systems failed to wean farmers from the routine of their 
 ancestors. In 1768 turnips and clover were still unknown in many 
 parts of the country ; and their full use only appreciated in the 
 eastern counties. In some districts, as in Essex (1808), clover had 
 been adopted with such zeal that the land was already turning 
 sick ; in others it was scarcely tried. In Westmoreland, for 
 instance, in 1794, " the prejudice that exists almost universally 
 against clover and rye-grass " was said to be " a great obstacle to 
 the improvement of the husbandry of the county." In Cumber- 
 land, where clover had been introduced in 1752, it was still rare in 
 1797. Turnips remained, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
 an " alien crop " in many counties, such as Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, 
 Hampshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Glamorgan- 
 shire, and Worcestershire. Even where they were grown, they 
 were generally sown broadcast, and seldom hoed. In 1780 a 
 Norfolk fanner settled in Devonshire, where he drilled and hoed his 
 roots. His crops were far superior to those of other farmers in the 
 district ; yet, at the close of the century, no neighbour had followed 
 his example. In 1794 many Northumberland sheep-masters still 
 milked their ewes, though the more intelligent had discontinued 
 the practice. Another illustration of the tyranny of custom may 
 be taken from ploughing. In many districts the Norfolk, Bother- 
 ham, or Small's ploughs had been introduced at a great economy 
 of cost. But elsewhere farmers still clung to some ancestral imple- 
 ment. In Kent, at the time of Cromwell, it was not unusual to see 
 six, eight, or twelve oxen attached to a single plough. On the 
 
AGRICULTURAL HEIRLOOMS 203 
 
 diy land of East Kent, on stony land, on rongh hill-sides, the 
 implement undoubtedly had, and has, its uses. But on all soils 
 alike, a century and a half later, the same huge machine, looking 
 at a distance more like a cart than a plough, with a beam the size 
 of a gate-post, remained the idol of the men of Kent. In Middlesex, 
 in 1796, it was no imcommon sight to see ploughs drawn by six 
 horses, with three men in attendance. In Berkshire (1794), four 
 horses and two men ploughed one acre a day. In Northampton- 
 shire Donaldson (1794) found in general use a clumsy implement, 
 with a long massive beam, drawn by four to six horses at length, 
 with a boy to lead and a man to hold. By immemorial custom in 
 Gloucestershire two men, a boy, and a team of six horses were 
 usually employed in ploughing. Ck)ke of Norfolk sent into the 
 county a Norfolk plough, and ploughman, who, with a pair of horses, 
 did the same work in the same time. But though the annual cost 
 of the operation was thus diminished by a half, it was twenty 
 years before the neighbours profited by the lesson. 
 
 The backwardness of many agricultural counties was to some 
 extent due to difficulties of communication. By the creation of 
 Turnpike Trusts (1663 and onwards) portions of the great high- 
 ways were placed in repair.^ Yet in the eighteen miles of turnpike 
 road between Preston and Wigan, Young in 1770 measiu^ ruts 
 " four feet deep and floating with mud only from a wet summer," 
 and passed three broken-down carts. " I know not in the whole 
 range of language," he says, " terms sufficiently expressive to 
 describe this infernal road. Let me most seriously caution all 
 travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible 
 country to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one 
 they break their necks or their limbs, by overthrows or breakings 
 down." The turnpike road to Newcastle from the south seems to 
 have been equally dangerous. " A more dreadful road," he says, 
 " cannot be imagined. I was obliged to hire two men at one place 
 to support my chaise from overturning. Let me persuade all 
 travellers to avoid this terrible country, which must either dislocate 
 their bones with broken pavements, or bury them in muddy sand." 
 The turnpike rojid from Chepstow to Newport was a rocky lane, 
 " full of hugeous stones, as big as one's horse, and abominable 
 holes." Marshall says that the Leicestershire roads, till about 
 1770, had been " in a state of almost total neglect since the days 
 > For farther details as to roads, see chap, viii , 
 
204 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of the Mercians." The principal road from Tamworth to Ashby 
 lay, in 1789, " in a state almost impassable several months in the 
 year." Waggons were taken off their wheels and dragged on their 
 bellies. Essex, in the time of Fitzherbert, was famous for the 
 badness of its roads. In the eighteenth century it worthily main- 
 tained its reputation. " A mouse could barely pass a carriage in 
 its narrow lanes," which were filled with bottomless ruts, and often 
 choked by a string of chalk waggons, buried so deeply in the mire 
 that they could only be extricated by thirty or forty horses. " Of 
 all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very 
 age of barbarism none ever equalled that from Billericay to the 
 ' King's Head ' at Tilbury " was the suffering cry of Young in 1769. 
 The roads of Herefordshire, says Marshall, twenty years later, were 
 " such as you might expect to find in the marshes of Holland or the 
 mountains of Switzerland." In Devonshire, which Marshall con- 
 sidered to be agriculturally the most benighted district of England, 
 there was not in 1760 one single wheeled carriage ; everything was 
 carried in sledges or on pack-horses. The latter were still in uni- 
 versal use in 1796. Crops were piled between willow " crooks," 
 to which the load was bound ; manure was carried in strong panniers, 
 or " potts," the bottom of which was a sort of falling door ; sand 
 was slung in bags across the wooden pack-saddle. Even where 
 efforts were made to improve the highways, the attempt was often 
 rendered useless by ignorance of the science of road-making. Some 
 roads were convex and barrel-shaped. But the faU from the centre 
 of the road to the sides was so rapid that carts could only travel in 
 the centre with safety. Many roads were concave, constructed in 
 the form of a trough, filled in with sand. In wet weather this 
 deposit became porridge. On a road of this formation between 
 Woodstock and Oxford, Marshall, in 1789, encountered labourers 
 employed in " scooping out the batter." Yet in spite of the diffi- 
 culty of communication, distant counties carried on a considerable 
 trade in agricultural produce. Thus calves, bred in Northampton- 
 shire, were sent to Essex to be reared. The animals travelled in 
 carts with their legs tied together, were eight days on the road, 
 and during the journey were fed with " gin-balls," i.e. flour and gin 
 mixed together. Off the main lines of communication, highways 
 were unmetalled tracks, which spread in width as vehicles deviated 
 to avoid the ruts of their predecessors. By-roads were often zig- 
 zag lanes, engineered on the principle that one good or bad turn 
 
NEEDS OF A MANTJFACTURING POPULATION 205 
 
 deserved another. In narrow ways the bells on the teams were not 
 merely ornaments ; they were warnings that the passage was barred 
 by the entry of another vehicle. When mral districts were thus 
 cat off from one another, their isolation was not only a formidable 
 obstacle to agricTdtnral progress, but made a uniform system of 
 growing com on every kind of land a practical necessity. Yet 
 the dajm when Gloucester seemed " in the Orcades," and York a 
 " Pindarick flight " from London had their advantages. In 1800 
 it required fifty-four horns, and favourable ciicumstances, for " a 
 philosopher, sis shirts, his genius, and his hat upon it," to reach 
 London from Dublin. 
 
 Shut off from neighbours by impassable roads, impeded in their 
 access to markets, not ambitious of raising from the soil anything 
 beyond their own needs and the satisfaction of the local demand for 
 bread, farmers felt no spur to improvement. Hitherto the slow 
 increase of a rural population was the only effective incentive to 
 increased production. But as the eighteenth century drew to its 
 close. Watt, Hargreaves, Crompton, Arkwright, and other me- 
 chanical geniuses were b^;inning to change the face of society with 
 the swiftness of a revolution. Population was shifting from the 
 South to the North, and advancing by leaps and bounds in 
 crowded manufacturing towns. Huge markets were springing up 
 for agricultural produce. Hitherto there had been few divisions of 
 employment because only the simplest implements of production 
 were used ; spinners, weavers, and cloth-workers, iron-workers, 
 handicraftsmen, bad combined much of their special industries with 
 the tillage of the soil. But the rapid development of manufacture 
 caused its complete separation from agriculture, and the application 
 of machinery to manual industries completed the revolution in social 
 arrangements. A division of labour became an economic necessity. 
 Farmers and manufacturers grew mutually dependent. Self- 
 sufficing farming was thrown out of date. Like manufacture, agri- 
 culture was ceasing to be a domestic industry. Both had to be 
 organised on a commercial footing. The problem was, how could 
 the inevitable changes be met best and most promptly ? How 
 could a country at war with Europe raise the most home-grown food 
 for a rapidly growing population, concentrated in the coal and 
 iron fields ? How could agriculture supply the demand for artisan 
 labour, and yet increase its own productiveness ? Arthur Young 
 was, at this period of his career, ready with an unhesitating answer 
 
206 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 — large farms, large capital, long leases, and the most improved 
 methods of cultivation and stock-breeding. His object was to 
 develop to the utmost the resources of the soil. To this end all 
 social considerations must be subordinated. Every obstacle to good 
 farming must be swept away — wastes reclaimed, commons divided, 
 open-fields converted into individual occupations, antiquated 
 methods abandoned, obsolete implements scrapped, improved 
 practices uniformly adopted. " Where," he asks, with perfect 
 truth, " is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole 
 farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons per acre ? who will 
 drain all his land at the expense of £2 or £3 an acre ? who will pay 
 a heavy price for the manure of towns, and convey it thirty miles 
 by land carriage ? who will float his meadows at the expense of 
 £5 an acre ? who, to improve the breed of his sheep, will give 1000 
 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season ? who will 
 send across the Kingdom to distant provinces for new implements, 
 and for men to use them 1 who will employ and pay men for residing 
 in provinces where practices are found which they want to intro- 
 duce into their farms ? " 
 
 Young's spirited crusade against bad or poor farming would 
 probably have fallen on deaf ears, if it had not been supported by 
 the prospect of financial gain and by the impulse of industrial 
 necessities. As he put the case, more produce from the land 
 meant higher rents for the landlord, larger incomes for farmers, 
 better wages for labourers, more home-grown food for the nation. 
 Under the pressure of war-prices and of the gigantic growth of a 
 manufacturing population, the system which he advocated made 
 rapid progress. Years after his death, it was established with such 
 completeness that men forgot not only the existence of any different 
 conditions, but even the very name of the most active pioneer of 
 the change. In the agricultural Uterature of the early and middle 
 Victorian era, he is almost ignored. The article on English agri- 
 culture in the Encyclopaedia BrUannica, for example, devotes only 
 a few lines to his career. Recently his memory has been revived 
 in England by the renewal under different circumstances of the 
 struggle between large and small farmers. In France, on the other 
 hand, where the contest between capitalist farmers and peasant pro- 
 prietors was never decisively terminated, the discussion has always 
 centred round his name. In the words of Lesage, his latest editor 
 and translator, France has made an adopted child of Arthur Young. 
 
"FARMER GEORGE" 207 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS. 
 1780-1813. 
 
 Agricultural enthusiasm at the close of the eighteenth centuiy ; high prices 
 of agricultural produce ; the causes of the advance ; increased demand 
 and cessation of foreign supplies ; the state of the currency ; rapid advance 
 of agriculture on the new lines of capitalist farming ; impulse given to 
 enclosing movement and the introduction of improved practices ; Davy's 
 Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry ; the work of large landlords : Coke 
 of Norfolk. 
 
 The enthiisia.sm for farming progress, which Arthur Young zeal- 
 ously promoted, spread with rapidity. A fashion was created 
 which was more lasting, because less artificial and more practical, 
 than it had been in the days of Pope. Great landlords took the 
 lead iu agricultaral improvements. Their farming zeal did not 
 escape criticism. Dr. Edwards ^ iu 1783 expressed a feeling which 
 was prevalent two centuries before : " Gentlemen have no right 
 to be farmers ; and their entering upon agriculture to foUow it as 
 a busiaess is perhaps a breach of their moral duty." But it was 
 now that young men, heirs to landed estates as well as younger 
 sons, began to go as pupils to farmers. George HE. rejoiced in 
 the title of " Farmer George," considered himself more indebted to 
 Arthur Young than to any man in his dominions, carried the last 
 volume of the Annals with him in his travelling carriage, kept his 
 model farm at Windsor,* formed his flock of merino sheep, and 
 experimented in stock-breeding. The Duke of Bedford at Wobum, 
 Lord Rockingham at Wentworth, Lord Egremont at Petworth, 
 Coke at Holkham, and numerous other landlords, headed the 
 
 1 Plan of an Vndertdking for the Improvement of Husbandry etc., by Dr. 
 Edwoids of Barnard Castle (1783). 
 
 iThe King's Windsor Form is described by Nathaniel Kent in Hunter's 
 ChorgietU Etsays (1803), voL iv. Elssay vii. 
 
208 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 reforming movement. Pox, even in the Louvre, was lost in con- 
 sideration whether the weather was favourable to his turnips at 
 St. Anne's Hill. Burke experimented ia carrots as a field crop 
 on his fann at Beaconsfield, though he pointed his sarcasms against 
 the Duke of Bedford for his devotion to agriculture. Lord Althorp, 
 in the nineteenth century, maintained the traditions of his official 
 predecessors. During a serious crisis of afEairs, when he was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Grey of Dilston called upon him 
 in Downing Street on political business. Lord Althorp's first 
 question, eagerly asked, was " Have you been at Wiseton on your 
 way up ? Have you seen the cows ? " The enthusiasm for farm- 
 ing began to be scientific as well as practical. No new book escaped 
 the vigilance of agriculturists. Miss Edgeworth's Essay on Irish 
 BvMs (1802) had scarcely been published a week before it was 
 ordered by the secretary of an agricultural society. Nor were the 
 clergy less zealous. An archdeacon, finding a churchyard culti- 
 vated for turnips, rebuked the rector with the remark, " This must 
 not occur again." The reply, " Oh no, Mr. Archdeacon, it will be 
 barley next year," shows that, whatever were the shortcomings of 
 the Church, the eighteenth century clergy were at least devoted to 
 the rotation of crops. 
 
 Every department of agriculture was permeated by a new spirit 
 of energy and enterprise. Rents rose, but profits outstripped the 
 rise. New crops were cultivated ; swedes, mangel-wmael, kohl 
 rabi, prickly comfrey were readily adopted by a new race of agri- 
 culturists. Breeders spent capital freely in improving live-stock. 
 New implements were introduced. The economy and handiness of 
 ploughs like the Norfolk, or the Rotherham ploughs as improved by 
 James Small of Blackadder Moimt, were gradually recognised, and 
 the cumbrous mediaeval instruments with their extravagant teams 
 superseded. Meikle's threshing machine (1784) began to drive 
 out the flail by its economy of human labour. Numerous patents 
 were taken out between 1788 and 1816 for drills, reaping, mowing, 
 haymaking, and winnowing machines, as well as for horse-rakes, 
 scarifiers, chaff-cutters, tumip-sUcers, and other mechanical aids to 
 agriculture. In the northern counties iron gates and fences began 
 to be used. The uniformity of weights and meaaures ^ was eagerly 
 
 * Under the Act of Union with Scotland (clause 17) it had been provided 
 that the same weights and measures which were established in England 
 should be used throughout the United Kingdom. But the clause remained 
 
LOCAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 209 
 
 discussed and recommended. Cattle-shows, wool-fairs, plooghing- 
 matches were held in various parts of the country. Counties, like 
 Durham, Northumberland, Cheshire, and Leicestershire, started 
 exi)erimental farms. The short-lived Society of " Improvers in 
 the Knowledge of Agriculture " had been formed in 1723. The 
 Society for the " Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Com- 
 merce " was instituted in London in 1754. Other associations, 
 more exclusively agricultural, speedily followed. The Bath and 
 West of England Society was founded in 1777, the Highland Society 
 in 1784, the Smithfield Qub in 1798. The creation of the Board of 
 Agriculture in 1793 has been already mentioned. The Farmers' 
 Club was established in 1793. The first number of the Farmer's 
 Magazine, which appeared in January, 1800, rapidly passed through 
 five editions. Provincial societies multipUed. At Lewes, in 1772, 
 Lord Sheffield had established a Society for the " Encouragement 
 of Agriculture, Manufacture and Industry " ; but it does not seem 
 to have survived the war with France and the United States. Few 
 counties were without their organisations for the promotion of 
 agricultural improvement. One of the first was established at 
 Odiham in Hampshire. Kent had its agricultural society at 
 Canterbury (1793) and the Kentish Society at Maidstone. In 
 Cornwall (1793), Berkshire (1794), Shropshire (1790), at Shifnal and 
 at Drayton in Leicestershire (1794), in Herefordshire (1797), pro- 
 vincial societies were founded. The West Riding of Yorkshire had 
 its society at Sheffield, Lancashire at Manchester, Worcestershire 
 at Evesham (1792), Huntingdonshire at Kimbolton. In Northamp- 
 tonshire similar associations were formed at Peterborough, Welling- 
 borough and Lamport. The list might be enlarged. But, though 
 many of these societies were short-lived, their foimdation illustrates 
 the new spirit which animated farming at the close of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 a dead letter. The establishment of uniformity was difficult. In 1768 a 
 Parliamentary Committee reported that there were in use in England four 
 di&erent legcJ measures of capacity, the respective quantities being in the 
 case of the bushel 2124, 2150, 2168, and 2240 cubic inches. The widest 
 diSerences existed between the weights Emd measures of the same county. 
 Thus in Cornwall, for instance, wheat was sold either by the double Win- 
 chester of 16 gallons or the treble Winchester of 24 gallons ; oats were sold 
 in the eastern district by the hogshead of 9 Winchesters, in the west by a 
 double Winchester of 17 gallons ; a bushel of seed-wheat bought from a 
 western farmer ran short of the eastern measure by between one emd two 
 gallons. Butter was sold at 18 oz. to the pound, "tba customary perch was 
 18 feet in length instead of the statutory length of 16 J feet. 
 
 O 
 
210 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 The period from 1780 to 1813 was one of exceptional activity 
 in agricultural progress. Apart from the flowing tide of enthusiasm, 
 landlords and farmers were spurred to fresh exertions and a great 
 outlay of capital and labour by the large returns on their expendi- 
 ture. All over the country new facilities of transport and com- 
 munication began to bring markets to the gates of farmers ; new 
 tracts of land were reclaimed ; open arable farms and pasture 
 commons were broken up, enclosed, and brought into more pro- 
 fitable cultivation ; vast sums of money were spent on buildings 
 and improvement. In spite of increased production, prices rose 
 higher and higher, and carried rents with them. " Com," says 
 Ricardo, " is not high because a rent is paid ; but a rent is paid 
 because com is high." In certain circumstances — ^if the State is 
 landlord, or if landowners could combine for the purpose — rents 
 might raise prices. But the general truth of Ricardo's view was 
 illustrated during the French War. From 1790 to 1813, rents rose 
 with the rise in prices, until over a great part of Great Britain they 
 were probably doubled. Even the larger yield from the land 
 under improved methods of cultivation did not cheapen produce, 
 reduce prices, and so cause lower rents. On the contrary, prices 
 were not only maintained, but continued to rise. 
 
 This continuously upward tendency in prices was unprecedented. 
 It c^anot be attributed to the operation of the Com Laws.^ Down 
 to 1815 that legislation had scarcely affected prices at all, and 
 therefore could not influence rents. The rise was rather due to a 
 variety of causes, some of which were exceptional and temporary. 
 A series of unprosperous seasons prevailed over the whole available 
 corn-area of Northern Europe. In England deficient harvests, 
 though the shortage was to some extent mitigated by the increased 
 breadth under com, reduced the home supply at a time when the 
 growth of an artisan population increased the demand. The country 
 throughout these years either stood, or thought that it stood, on 
 the verge of famine. Prices were raised by panic-stricken com- 
 petition. As the area of the war extended, foreign supplies became 
 less and less available. The enormous increase in the war-charges 
 for freight and insurance made Great Britain more aind more 
 dependent on her own produce. Necessity compelled the full 
 development of her existing resources, as well as the resort to 
 inferior land. Larger supplies of home-grown com could only be 
 
 ^ See chapter zii. 
 
HIGH PRICES DURING THE FRENCH WARS 211 
 
 obtained either by improved methods of cultivation or by bringing 
 untilled land mider the plough. The one method powerfully 
 stimulated the progress of agriculture, which may be summed up 
 in increasing the yield and lowering the cost of production ; the 
 other was the vaUd justification of the rapid enclosure of wastes, 
 open-fields, and commons. Much of the land that now was sown 
 with com could only be tilled at a profit when prices were high, 
 because the outlay on its tillage was greater, and the return from 
 its cultivation was less, than on ordinary land. Tet, as prices then 
 stood, even this inferior soil was able to bear a rent, and by each 
 step towards the margin of cultivation, the rental value of land 
 of better quality was enhsmced. Thus Napoleon proved to be 
 the Triptolemus or patron saint not only of farmers but of land- 
 lords. 
 
 Another cause of the high prices of the time was the state of the 
 currency. When gold is cheap, commodities are dear. Any great 
 increase in the production of gold for a time raises prices ; the 
 sovereign becomes of less relative value ; it buys less than before, 
 and more gold has to be paid for the same quantity. But this 
 direct effect of gold discoveries was not then in operation ; it had 
 spent its force, and at the close of the eighteenth century did not 
 materially affect prices. Similar results were, however, produced 
 by the immense extension of that system of deferred payment 
 which is called credit. Paper money was issued in excessive 
 quantities, not only by the Bank of England but by the private 
 banks all over the country. A new medium of exchange was 
 created. This addition to the circulating medium raised prices in 
 the same kind of way as an actual addition to the quantity of coin. 
 But there was this important difference. Paper money is only a 
 promise to pay ; it is only representative money, and, unless it 
 is convertible into gold, the credit which it creates is fictitious and 
 may be excessive. The immense development of manufacturing 
 industries and of the canal system, in the years 1785-92, required 
 increased facilities for carrying on commercial transactions. But 
 bankers, in their eagerness to create business, made advances on 
 insufficient or inconvertible securities, discounted bills without 
 regard to the actual value of the commodities on which the trans- 
 actions were based, and issued notes far beyond tJie amount which 
 tlieir actual funds justified. In 1793 came the first crash. The 
 Bank of England, warned by the fall of the exchanges and the 
 
212 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 outflow of gold, restricted their issue of notes. A panic followed. 
 Out of 350 country banks in England and Wales, more than 100 
 stopped payment ; their promises to pay were repudiated ; and 
 their paper was destroyed at the expense of the holder. The ruin 
 and the loss of confidence were widespread ; those who escaped 
 the crash hoarded their money instead of making investments in 
 mercantile undertakings. But the destruction of so much paper 
 temporarily restored the proportion between the gold in the country 
 and the paper by which it was represented. 
 
 In 1797 a second crisis occurred. Alarmed at a prospect of 
 invasion, country depositors crowded to withdraw deposits and 
 realise their property. There were runs on the country banks, and 
 such heavy demands for their support were made on the Bank of 
 England that, on Saturday, February 25, 1797, the stock of coin 
 and buUion had fallen to under £1,300,000, with every prospect of 
 a renewal and an iacrease of the run on the following Monday. On 
 Sunday, February 26, an Order of Council suspended payments in 
 cash until Parliament could consider the situation. The merchants 
 of London came to the rescue of the bank. They guaranteed the 
 payment of its notes in gold ; the national credit was saved, and 
 the worst of the threatened crisis was averted. But the failures 
 of country banks were again numerous. Once more the same 
 process was repeated. Paper money in large quantities was 
 destroyed at the cost of its holders, and the balance between the 
 promise and the abiUty to pay was again readjusted. The experi- 
 ence was not lost on agriculturists, who found that their land was 
 not only the most remunerative but the safest investment. 
 
 Under the Bank Restriction Act of .1797, the Bank of England 
 suspended payment in coin. In other words a paper currency was 
 created which was not convertible into gold. The Act was origin- 
 aUy a temporary expedient. But it was not till 1821 that the 
 bank completely resumed payment in specie. No doubt the 
 effect of the Act was to aggravate the tendency of prices to rise. 
 Yet the measure was probably justified by the exceptional circum- 
 stances of the war and of trade. It supplied the Government with 
 gold for the expenses of our own expeditionary forces, as well as 
 for the payment of subsidies to oiu- allies. It also enabled the 
 country to carry on the one-sided system of trade to which we 
 were gradually reduced by the Continental blockade. Our exports 
 of manufactured goods were excluded from Eiuropean ports. Con- 
 
FINANCIAL CRISES 213 
 
 sequently the materials which we imported were paid for ia cash 
 instead of in goods, and the vessels which conveyed them to our 
 ports returned in ballast. There was thus a constant drain of gold 
 from the country. So long as the power to issue inconvertible 
 notes was sparingly used, the paper currency maintained its nominal 
 value. But from 1808 onwards such large quantities of paper were 
 issued, not only by the Bank of England but by country banks, 
 that it rapidly depreciated as compared with gold. It is probable 
 that from 1811 to 1813 one-fifth of the enormous prices of agri- 
 cultural produce were due to the disordered state of the currency. 
 In 1814, owing partly to the abundant harvest of the previous 
 year, partly to the collapse of the Continental blockade, prices 
 rapidly fell. A financial crash followed which caused even more 
 widespread ruin in country districts than the paroxysm of 1793. 
 Of the country banks, 240 stopped payment, and 89 became bank- 
 rupt. The result was a wholesale destruction of bank-paper, the 
 reduction of thousands of families from wealth to destitution, and 
 the gradual restoration of the equilibrium of the currency. 
 
 The seasons, the war, the growth of population, the disorders of 
 the currency, combined to raise and maintain at a high level the 
 prices of agricultural produce in Great Britain. At the same 
 time the prohibitive cost of transport prevented such foreign sup- 
 plies as were then available from reducing the prices of home-grown 
 com. Circumstances thus gave British agriculturists a monopoly, 
 which, after 1815, they endeavoured to preserve by legislation. 
 Land was not only a most profitable investment, but the fate of 
 speculators had again and again convinced both landlords and 
 tenants that land was the safest bank. Thus business caution, as 
 well as business enterprise, prompted the outlay of capital on agri- 
 cultural improvement. Economic ideas pointed ia the same direc- 
 tion. The doctrine of John Locke,^ that high rents were a symptom 
 of prosperity still prevailed among politicians. It was also main- 
 tained that high rents were a necessary spur to agricultural progress. 
 So long as land remained . cheap, farmers rested satisfied with 
 antiquated practices ; the dearer the land, the more energetic and 
 enterprising they necessarily became. Tonng went so far as to 
 say that the spendthrift, who frequented London club-houses and 
 
 1 " An infallible sign of your decay of wealth is the falling of rents, and the 
 raising of them would be worth the nation's caie " {Worka, ed. 1823, voL v. 
 p. 69). 
 
214 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 raified rents to pay his debts of honour, was a greater benefactor 
 to agriculture than the stay-at-home squire who Uved frugally 
 in order to keep within his ancestral income. No economist of the 
 day had conceived any other method of satisfying the wants of a 
 growing population except by improving the existing practices of 
 farmers or bringing fresh tracts of land under the plough. Advanced 
 Free Traders like Porter ^ never imagined that a progressive country 
 could become dependent on foreign nations for its daily food. It 
 was to the continuous improvement in agricultural methods that 
 he looked for the means of supplying a population, which, he cal- 
 culated, would, at the end of the nineteenth century, exceed 40 
 millions. Nor did he entertain any doubt that, by the progress 
 of skill and enterprise, the quantity raised in 1840 could be increased 
 by the requisite 150 per cent. 
 
 Encouraged by high profits, approved by economists, jiistified 
 by necessity, agriculture advanced rapidly on the new lines of 
 large farms and large capital. The change was one side of a wider 
 movement. In the infancy of agriculture and of trade, self- 
 supporting associations had been formed for mutual defence and 
 protection. Manorial organisations like trade guilds had begun to 
 break up, when the central power was firmly established. Now, 
 once more, agriculture and majiufacture were simultaneously 
 reorganised. Division of labour had become a necessity. Domestic 
 handicrafts were gathered into populous manufacturing centres, 
 which were dependent for food on the labour of agriculturists. 
 Farms ceased to be self-sufficing industries, and became factories 
 of beef and mutton. The pressure of these conditions demanded 
 the utmost development of the resources of the soil. The cultiva- 
 tion of additioiial land by the most improved methods grew more 
 and more necessary. Enclosures went on apace. Yet, even in 
 favourable seasons, it was a struggle to keep pace with growing 
 needs ; scarcity, if not famine, resulted from deficiency. During 
 part of the period, foreign suppUes might be reUed on to avert the 
 worst. But throughout the Napoleonic wars tins resource grew 
 
 * " To supply the United Kingdom with the single article of wheat would 
 call for the employment of more than twice the amount of shipping which 
 now annually enters our ports, if indeed it would be possible to procure the 
 grain from other countries in sufficient quantity ; and to bring to our shores 
 every article of agricultural produce in the abundance which we now enjoy, 
 would probably give constant occupation to the mercantile navy of the whole 
 world " {Progreaa of the. Nation, ed. 1847, p. 136). 
 
RAPID INCREASE OF ENCLOSURES 215 
 
 yeaxly more uncertain and more costly. The pace of enclosure 
 was immensely accelerated. In the first 33 years of the reign of 
 George m., there were 1355 Acts passed ; in the 23 years of the 
 wars with France (1793-1815) there were 1934. It is easy to attri- 
 bute the great increase of enclosures during this last period solely 
 to the greed of landlords, eager to profit by the high prices of 
 agricultural produce. That the land would not have been brought 
 into cultivation unless it paid to do so, may be admitted. But it 
 must in justice be remembered that an addition to the cultivated 
 area was, in existing circvmistances, one of the two methods, which 
 at that time were alone available, of increasing the supply of food, 
 averting famine, and reducing prices. Economically, enclosures 
 can be justified. But the processes by which they were sometimes 
 carried out, were often indefensible, and socially their effects were 
 disastrous. On these points more will be said subsequently. Here 
 it will be enough to reiterate the statement that enclosure meant 
 not merely reclamation of waste ground, but partition of the com- 
 mons and extinction of the open-field system. It has been suggested, 
 on the authority of passages in his tract on Wastes, that Arthur 
 Young learned to deplore his previous crusade against village farms, 
 when he saw the effect of enclosures on rural life. What Young 
 deplored was the loss of a golden opportunity of attaching land 
 to the home of the cottager. But he never faltered in his con- 
 viction of the necessity of breaking up the open-fields and 
 dividing the commons. In the tract on Wastes he emphatically 
 asserts his wish to see all commons enclosed, and he was too great 
 a master of his subject not to know that without pasture the arable 
 village farms must inevitably perish. 
 
 The other method of increasing the food supplies of the country 
 consisted of agricultural improvements. Here also the preparation 
 of the ground involved changes which bore hardly on small occupiers 
 of land. The new sjrstem of fanning required large holdings, to 
 which a new class of tenant of superior education and intelligence 
 was attracted. It was on these holdings that capital could be 
 expended to the greatest advantage, that meat and com could be 
 grown in the largest quantities, that most use could be made of 
 those mechanical aids which cheapened production. Costly im- 
 provements could not be carried out by small hand-to-mouth 
 occupiers, even if their obstinate adherence to antiquated methods 
 would have allowed them to contemplate the possibility of change. 
 
216 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 But this coQSolidation of holdings threw into the hands of one 
 tenant land which had previously been occupied by several. If the 
 land was laid dawn to grass, and in the case of heavy land, down 
 to 1790, this was the most profitable form of enclosure, — ^there was 
 also a diminution in the demand for labour, and a consequent 
 decrease in the population of the village. If, on the other hand, 
 the land was cultivated as an arable farm, there was probably a 
 greater demand for labour and possibly an increase in the nimibers 
 of the rural population. Arthur Young in 1801 ^ shows that, out 
 of 37 enclosed parishes in an arable county like Norfolk, population 
 had risen in 24, fallen in 8, and remained stationary in 5. It 
 cannot therefore be said that either enclosures, or the consolidation 
 of holdings, necessarily depopulated country villages. Whether 
 this result followed, or did not follow, depended on the use to which 
 the land was put, though even on arable farms the gradual intro- 
 duction of machinery, at present limited to the threshing machine, 
 tended to diminish the demand for labour. 
 
 If the country was to be fed, more scientific methods of farming 
 were necessary. The need was pressing, and both enclosures and 
 the consoUdation of large farms prepared the way for a new stage 
 of agricultural progress. Hitherto bucolic life had been the pastime 
 of a fashionable world, the relaxation of statesmen, the artificial 
 inspiration of poets. But farmers had neither asked nor allowed 
 scientific aid. The dawn of a new era, in which practical experience 
 was to be combined with scientific knowledge, was marked by the 
 lectures of Humphry Davy in 1803. In 1757 Francis Home* 
 had insisted on the dependence of agriculture on " Chymistry." 
 Without a knowledge of that science, he said, agriculture could not 
 be reduced to principles. In 1802 the first steps were taken towards 
 this end. The Board of Agriculture arranged a series of lectures on 
 " The Connection of Chemistry with Vegetable Physiology," to be 
 delivered by Davy, then a young man of twenty-three, and recently 
 (July, 1801) appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the 
 Royal Institution of Great Britain. He had already made his 
 mark as the most brilliant lecturer of the day, attracting round him 
 by his scientific use of the imagination such men as Dr. Parr and 
 
 ^ Inquiry into the Propriety of applying Wastes to the Better MairUenance 
 and Support of the Poor. 
 
 • The Princvples of Agriculture and Vegetation, by Francis Home, M.D., 
 1767. 
 
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY 217 
 
 S. T. Coleridge, and the talent, rank, and fashion of London, women 
 as well as men. His six lectures on agricoltun^ chemistry, com- 
 mencing May 10, 1803, were delivered before the Board of Agri- 
 culture. So great was their success that he was appointed Professor 
 of Chemistry to the Board, and in that capacity gave courses of 
 lectures during the ten following years. In 1813 the results of his 
 researches were published in his Elementa of AgricuitunU Chemistry. 
 The volume is now out-of-date, though the lecture on " SoUs and 
 their Analyses," in spite of the progress of geological science and 
 the adoption of new classifications, remains of permanent interest. 
 Many passages that were then listened to as novelties are now com- 
 monplaces ; others, especially those on manures, have been com- 
 pletely superseded by the advance of knowledge. But if the book 
 has ceased to be a practical guide, it remains a historical landmark, 
 and something more. It is the foundation-stone on which the 
 science of agricultural chemistry has been reared, and its author 
 was the direct ancestor of liebig, Lawes, and Gilbert, to whose 
 labours, in the field which Davy first explored, modem sigriculture 
 is at every turn so deeply indebted. It was Davy's work which 
 inspired the choice by the Royal Agricultural Society (founded in 
 1838) of its motto " Practice with Science." 
 
 In Thomas Coke of Norfolk ^ the new system of large farms and 
 large capital found their most celebrated champion. In 1776, at 
 the age of twenty-two, he came into his estate with " the King of 
 Denmark " as "his nearest neighbour." Wealthy, devoted to 
 field sports, and already Member of Parliament for Norfolk, it 
 seemed improbable that he would find time for farming. But as 
 an ardent Whig and a prominent supporter of Fox in the House of 
 Commons, he was excluded by his politics from court life or political 
 office. In 1778 the refusal of two tenants to accept leases at an 
 increased rent threw a quantity of land on his hands. He deter- 
 mined to farm the land himself. From that time till his death in 
 1842, he stood at the head of the new agricultural movement. On 
 his own estates his energy was richly rewarded. Dr. R^by,' 
 writing in 1816, states that the annual rental of Holkham rose from 
 £2,200 in 1776 to £20,000 in 1816. 
 
 When Coke took his land in hand, not an acre of wheat was 
 
 > Coke of Norfolk and his Frienda, bjr A. M. W. Starling, 2 vola. 1910. 
 * The Pamphleteer, voL ziii. pp. 469-70 ; Hoffcham and its Agrieu^ure, 3rd 
 edition, 1818, pp. 25, 28. 
 
218 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 to be Been from Holkham to Lynn. The thin sandy soil produced 
 bnt a scanty yield of rye. Naturally wanting in richness, it was 
 still further impoverished by a barbarous system of cropping. No 
 manure was purchased ; a few Norfolk sheep with backs like 
 rabbits, and, here and there, a few half-starved milch cows were 
 the only live-stock ; the Uttle muck that was produced was miser- 
 ably poor. Coke determined to grow wheat. He marled and 
 clayed the land, purchased large quantities of manure, drilled his 
 wheat and turnips, grew sainfoin and clover, trebled his live-stock. 
 On the light drifty land in his neighbourhood the Flemish maxim 
 held good : " Point de fourrage, point de bestiaux ; sans bestiaux, 
 aucun engrais ; sans engrais, nulle recolte." " No keep, no live- 
 stock ; without stock, no manure ; without manure, no crops." 
 It is, in fact, the Norfolk proverb, " Muck is the mother of money." 
 In the lafit quarter of the eighteenth century the value of bones 
 as fertilisers was realised.^ The discovery has been attributed to 
 a Yorkshire fox-himter who was cleaning out his kennels ; others 
 assign it to farmers in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, where rofuse 
 heaps were formed of the bones which were not available for the 
 handles of cutlery. By the use of the new discovery Coke profited 
 largely. He also introduced into the county the use of artificial 
 foods like oil-cake, which, with roots, enabled Norfolk farms to 
 cany increased stock. Under his example and advice stall-feeding 
 was extensively practised. On Bullock's TTill near Norwich, during 
 the great fair of St. Faith's, drovers assembled from all parts of the 
 country, especially from Scotland, with herds of half-fed beasts 
 which were bought up by Norfolk farmers to be fattened for London 
 markets. The grass lands, on which the beef and mutton of our 
 ancestors were raised, were deserted for the sands of the eastern 
 counties, from which under the new farming practice, the metro- 
 polis drew its meat supplies. Numbers of animals fattened on 
 nutritions food gave farmers the command of the richest manure, 
 fertilised their land, and enabled them not only to grow wheat 
 but to verify the maxim " never to sow a crop unless there is con- 
 dition to grow it luxuriantly." 
 
 In nine years Coke had succeeded in growing good crops of wheat 
 on the land which he farmed himself. He next set himself to 
 improve the live-stock. After patient trial of other breeds, and 
 
 ' Bones were ground at a mill in Lancashire in 1704 by a local farmer who 
 sold his surplus to his neighbours. 
 
COKE OF NORFOLK 219 
 
 especially of Shorthorns among cattle and of the New Leicesters 
 and Merinos among sheep, he adopted Devons and Southdowns. 
 His efforts were not confined to the home-farm. Early and late 
 he worked in his smock-frock, assisting tenants to improve their 
 flocks and herds. Grass lands, till he gave them his attention, 
 were wholly neglected in the district. If meadow or pasture 
 wanted renewal, or arable land was to be laid down in grass, farmers 
 either allowed it to tmnble down, or threw indiscriminately on 
 the gromid a quantity of seed drawn at haphazard from their own 
 or their neighbour's ricks, containing as mnch rank weed as nutri- 
 tions herbage. It was a mere chance whether the sour or the sweet 
 grasses were aided in their struggle for existence. StUling- 
 fleet, in 1760, had distinguished the good and bad herbage by 
 excellent illustrations of the kinds best calculated to produce the 
 richest hay and sweetest }>asture. The Society of Arts, Manu- 
 facture and Commerce had offered premiums for the best collections 
 of the best kinds, and in Edinburgh the Lawsons were experimenting 
 on grasses. But Coke was the first landlord who appreciated the 
 value of the distinctions by applying them to his own land. In 
 May and June, when the grasses were in bloom, he gave ids simple 
 botanical lessons to the children of his tenantry, who scoured the 
 countiy to procure his stocks of seed. 
 
 Impressed with the community of interest among owners, occu- 
 piers, and labourers. Coke stimulated the enterprise of his tenants, 
 encouraged tibem to put more money and more labour into the land, 
 and assisted them to take advantage of every new invention and 
 discovery. Experiments with drill husbandry on 3,000 acres of 
 com land convinced him of its value in economy of time, in saving 
 of seed, in securing an equal depth of sowing, and in facilitating the 
 cleaning of the land. He calculated that he saved in seed a bushel 
 and a half per acre, and increased the yield per acre by twelve 
 bushels. As with the drill, so with other innovations. He tested 
 every novelty himself, and offered to his neighbours only the results 
 of his own successful experience. It was thus that the practice of 
 drilling tnniips tmd wheat, and the value of sainfoin, swedes, mangel- 
 wurzel, and potatoes were forced on the notice of Norfolk farmers. 
 His fann-boildings, dwelling-houses, and cottages were models to 
 other landlords. On them he spared no reasonable expense. 
 They cost him, during his tenure of the property, more than half 
 a million of money. By offering long leases of twenty-one years. 
 
220 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 he guaranteed to improving farmers a return for their energy and 
 outlay. Two years before the expiration of a lease, the tenant 
 was informed of the new rent proposed, and offered a renewal. 
 " My best bank," said one of his farmers, " is my land." At the 
 same time he guarded against the mischief of a long unrestricted 
 tenancy by covenants regulating the course of high-class cultivation. 
 Though management clauses were then comparatively unknown 
 in English leases, his farms commanded competition among 
 the pick of English farmers. " Live and let Uve " was not 
 only a toast at the Holkham sheep-shearings, but a rule in 
 the control of the Holkham estate. Cobbett was not prejudiced 
 in favour of landlords. Yet even he was compelled to admit 
 the benefits which Coke's tenants derived from his paternal 
 rule. " Every one," he writes in 1821, " made use of the 
 expressions towards him which affectionate children use towards 
 their parents." 
 
 One great obstacle to the improvement of Norfolk farming 
 remained. Farmers of the eighteenth century lived, thought, and 
 farmed like farmers of the thirteenth century. Wheat instead of 
 rye might be grown with success ; turnips, if drilled, were more 
 easily hoed and yielded a heavier crop than those which were sown 
 broadcast ; marl and clay might help to consolidate drifting soil. 
 But the neighbouring farmers were suspicious of new methods, and 
 distrusted a young man who disobeyed the saws and maxims of 
 their forefathers. Politics ran so high that Coke's Southdowns 
 were denounced as " Whiggish sheep." It was nine years before 
 he found anyone to imitate him in growing wheat. " It might be 
 good for Mr. Coke ; but it was not good enough for them." As 
 to potatoes, the best they would say was, that " perha})s they 
 wouldn't poison the pigs." Even those who had given up broad- 
 cast sowing still preferred the dibber to the drill. Sixteen years 
 passed before the implement was adopted. Coke himself calculated 
 that his improvements travelled at the rate of a mile a year. The 
 Holkham sheep-shearings did much by ocular demonstration to 
 break down traditions and prejudices. These meetings originated 
 in 1778, in Coke's own ignorance of farming matters ; small parties 
 of farmers were annually invited to discuss agricultural topics at 
 his house and aid him with their practical advice. Before many 
 years had passed, the gatherings had grown larger, and Coke had 
 become a teacher as well as a learner. The Holkham sheep- 
 
THE HOLKHAM SHEEP-SHEARINGS 221 
 
 shearing in Jtine, 1806 is described in the Farmer's Magazine ^ in 
 the stilted language of the day, as " the happy resort of the most 
 distingnished patrons and amateurs of Georgia employments." In 
 1818 open house was kept at Holkham for a week ; hundreds of 
 persons assembled from aU parts of Great Britain, the Continent, 
 and America. The mornings were spent in inspecting the land and 
 the stock ; at three o'clock, six hundred persons sate down to din- 
 ner ; the rest of each day was spent in discussion, toasts, and 
 speeches. The Emperor of Russia sent a special representative, 
 and among the learners was Erskine, who abandoned the study of 
 Coke at Westminster HaU to gather the wisdom of his namesake 
 at Holkham. At the sheep-shearings, year after year, were col- 
 lected practical and theoretical agriculturists, farmers from every 
 district, breeders of every kind of stock, who compared notes and 
 exchanged experiences. In many other parts of England similar 
 meetings were held by great landlords, like the Duke of Bedford at 
 Wobum,* or Lord Egremont at Petworth, who in their own localities 
 were carrying on the same work as Coke. 
 
 At Holkham and Wobum sheep-shearings, both landlords and 
 farmers were learners ; both required to be educated in the new 
 principles of their altered business. It was by no means uncommon 
 to find landlords who prevented progress by refusing to let land 
 except at will, or bound their tenants by restrictive covenants to 
 follow obsolete practices. There was, moreover, a tendency among 
 the land-owning class to expect from rent-payiog tenants a greater 
 outlay on the land than a farmer's capital could bear or an occupier 
 was justified in making. The question of improvements had not 
 yet assumed the compUcated forms which have developed under 
 modem agricultural methods. But it had already been raised in 
 the simpler shape. The habiUty for improvements of a permanent 
 character required to be defined ; no distinction was yet drawn 
 between changes which added some lasting benefit to the holding 
 and those whose effects were exhausted within the limits of a brief 
 occupation. Expenditure which might legitimately be borne by 
 landlords was often demanded from tenants at will or even from year 
 to year. Thousands of acres still lay unproductive because owners 
 looked to occupiers for the reclamation of waste, the drainage of 
 
 ^ Farmer's Magazine, August, 1806. 
 
 'For a deeciiption of a Wobum sheep-Bhearing, or "this truly rational 
 Agricultural Fete," see Farmer' » Magazine for July, 1800. 
 
222 LAEGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 
 
 swamps, or an embankment against floods. It was one of the 
 lessons which were taught by the agricultural depression after the 
 peace of 1816 that landowners must find the money for lasting 
 improvements effected on their property. 
 
 That farmers should have realised the possibility of improving 
 traditional practices weis a great step in advance. The new race 
 of men, who were beginning to occupy land, were better educated, 
 commanded more capital, were more open to new ideas and more 
 enterprising than their predecessors. Their holdings were larger, 
 and offered greater scope for energy and experiment. The Reporters 
 to the Board of Agriculture on Northumberland (1805) lay stress 
 on the size of the farms, and on the spirit of enterprise and in- 
 dependence which now animated the tenants. " Scarcely a year 
 passes without some of them making extensive tours for the sole 
 purpose of examining modes of culture, of purchaaing or hiring the 
 most improved breeds of stock, and seeing the operations of new- 
 invented and most useful implements." The Reporter on Middle- 
 sex (1798) emphasises the stagnation of farming among small 
 occupiers. " It is rather the larger farmers and yeomen, or men 
 who occupy their own land, that mostly introduce improvements 
 in the practice of agriculture, and that uniformly grow much 
 greater crops of com, and produce more beef and mutton per acre 
 than others of a smaller capital." The Oxfordshire Reporter (1809) 
 says : "If you go into Banbury market next Thursday, you may 
 distinguish the farmers from enclosures from those from open 
 fields ; quite a different sort of men ; the farmers as much changed 
 as their husbandry— quite new men, in point of knowledge and 
 ideas." Elsewhere in the same Report, — ^it is Arthur Young who 
 writes, — occurs the following passage : The Oxfordshire farmers 
 " are now in the period of a great change in their ideas, knowledge, 
 practice, and other circumstances. Enclosing to a greater pro- 
 portional amount than in almost any other county in the kingdom, 
 has changed the men as much as it has improved the country ; they 
 are now in the ebullition of this change ; a vast amelioration has 
 been wrought, and is working ; and a great deal of ignorance and 
 barbarity remains. The Goths and Vandals of open-fields touch 
 the civilisation of enclosures. Men have been taught to thinik, 
 and till that moment arrives, nothing can be done effectively. 
 When I passed from the conversation of the farmers I was recom- 
 mended to call on, to that of men whom chance threw in my way. 
 
THE NEW RACE OF TENANTS 223 
 
 I seemed to have lost a century in time, or to have moved a thousand 
 miles in a day. Liberal communication, the result of enlarged ideas, 
 was contrasted with a dark ignorance under the covert of wise 
 suspicions ; a sullen reserve lest landlords should be rendered too 
 knowii^, and false information given under the hope that it 
 might deceive, were in such opposition, that it was easy to see 
 the change, however it might work, had not done its business. The 
 old open-field school must die off before new ideas can become 
 generally rooted." In Lincolnshire, in the early years of George 
 m., Arthur Young had found few points in the management of 
 arable land which did not merit condemnation. The progress, 
 which he noted as Reporter to the Board of Agriculture in 1799, 
 was largely due to the changed character of the farmers. " I have 
 not," he says, " seen a set more liberal in any part of the kingdom. 
 Industrious, active, enlightened, free from all foolish and expensive 
 show, . . . they live comfortably and hospitably, as good farmers 
 ought to live ; and in my opinion are remarkably void of those 
 rooted prejudices which sometimes are reasonably objected to this 
 race of men. I met with many who had moimted their nags, and 
 quitted their homes purposely to examine other parts of the king- 
 dom ; had done it with enlarged views, and to the benefit of their 
 own cultivation." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 (1793-1815). 
 
 Condition of open-field arable land and pasture commons as described by the 
 Reporters to the Board of Agriculture, 1793-1815 ; (1) The North and 
 North- Western District ; (2) West Midland and South- Western District ; 
 (3) South-Eastem and Midland District ; (4) Eastern and North-Eastem 
 District ; (6) the Fens ; the cumulative effect of the evidence ; procedure 
 under private Enclosure Acts ; its defects and cost ; the General enclosure 
 Act of 1801 ; the Inclosure Commissioners ; the new Board of Agriculture. 
 
 It might perhaps be supposed that in 1793 the agricultural defects 
 of the ancient system of open arable fields and common pasture 
 had been remedied by experience ; that open-field farmers had 
 shared in the general progress of farming ; that time alone was 
 needed to raise them to the higher level of an improved standard ; 
 that, therefore, enclosures had ceased to be an economic necessity. 
 In 1773, an important Act of ParUament had been passed,^ which 
 attempted to help open-field farmers in adapting their inconvenient 
 system of occupation to the improved practices of recent agriculture. 
 Three-fourths of the partners in viUage-farms were empowered, 
 with the* consent of the landowner and the titheowner, to appoint 
 field-reeves, and through them to regulate and improve the cultiva- 
 tion of the open arable fields. But any arrangement made under 
 these powers was only to last six years, and, partly for this reason, 
 the Act seems to have been from the first almost a dead letter. 
 At Hunmanby, on the wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire,* 
 the provisions of the Act were certainly put in force, and it is 
 
 1 13 Geo. III. c. 81. 
 
 ' Isaac Leatham's General View of the Agriculture of the East Riding of York- 
 shire (1794), p. 46. Thomas Stone, in his Suggestions for Rendering the In- 
 dosure of Common Fields and Waste iLands a source of Population and Riches 
 (1787), says that he knew of no instance in which the Act had been put in 
 force. 
 
CONDITION OF OPEN-FIELDS AND COMMONS 225 
 
 possible ihait it was also applied at Wilburton in Cambridgeshiie. 
 With these exceptions, little, if any, nse seems to have been made 
 of a well-intentioned piece of legislation. 
 
 Small prepress had in fact been made among the cultivators of 
 open-fields. Here and there, the new spirit of agricnltoral enter- 
 prise had influenced the occupiers of village farms. In rare instances 
 improved practices were introduced. But the demand for increased 
 food supplies had become, as our ancestors were experiencing, too 
 pressing for delay. Any continuous series of adverse seasons created 
 a real scarcity of bread, and more than once during the Napoleonic 
 wars, famine was at the door. Unless food could be produced at 
 home, it could not be obtained elsewhere. An extension of the 
 cultivated area was the quickest means of adding to production. 
 Agriculturists at the close of the eighteenth century were convinced 
 that no adequate increase in the produce of the soil could be obtained, 
 unless open-field farms were broken up, and the commons brought 
 into more profitable cultivation. If they were right in that belief, 
 the great agricultural change was justified, which established the 
 uniform system with which we are familiar to-day. The point is 
 one of the greatest importance. The uncritical praises lavished 
 by sixteenth and seventeenth century travellers on open-field 
 {arming are of little value because they had no higher standard 
 with which to compare its results. Such a standard had now been 
 to some extent created. It may therefore be useful to illustrate, 
 from the contemporary records supplied by the Reports to the 
 Board of Agriculture,^ the condition of open arable land and of 
 pasture-commons in the years 1793-1815. The material is arranged 
 according to the four districts into which, for statistical purposes, 
 the English counties are usually divided. The cumulative force of 
 the evidence is great. But some of it relates to wastes which were 
 not attached to village farms, although common of pasture and 
 fuel was often claimed over the area by the inhabitants of the 
 neighbourhood. As to the reliability of the whole evidence, it 
 
 * The Reports to the Board aie extant in two forms. The quarto editions 
 were drafts, intended for private circulation and for correction by practical 
 agriculturists belonging to the district under survey. They all belong to 
 the years 1793-94-96. The octavo editions are the Reports in their final 
 form. They were published at various dates, ranging from 1795 in the case 
 of Holt's Loneathire, to 1816 when Quayle's Channel Islands was issued. In 
 some cases the Reports are practically the same in their draft and final forms. 
 Sometimes, on the other hand, they were re-written by other Reporters with 
 scarcely any reference to the original Survey. 
 
 P 
 
226 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 would be only fair to add that the Reporteis were not likely to be 
 prejudiced in favour of open-field farms or unappropriated commons. 
 1. In the North and North-Westem District, enclosure had gone on 
 apace since 1770. In Northumberland, for instance (1805), very 
 little common land was left which could be made profitable under 
 the plough. 120,000 acres were said to have been enclosed " in 
 the last thirty years." ^ In Durham, it is stated that " the lands, 
 or common fields of townships, were for the most part inclosed 
 soon after the Restoration." The Reporter laments " that in some 
 of the rich parts of the county, particularly in the neighbourhood 
 of the capital of it, large quantities of land should still he totally 
 deprived of the benefit of cultivation, in commons ; and that 
 ancient indosures, by being subject to the perverse custom of 
 intercommon, be prevented from that degree of fertilization, to 
 which the easy opportunity of procuring manure, in most cases, 
 would certainly soon carry the improvement of them ; in their 
 present state, little or no benefit is derived to any person what- 
 soever, entitled either to common, or intercommon, from the use 
 of them." * The waste lands of the West Riding of Yorkshire • 
 are calculated at 265,000 acres capable of cultivation. The Reporter 
 proposes to " add to these the common fields which are also exten- 
 sive, and susceptible of as much improvement as the wastes." The 
 man on inclosed land " has not the vis inertiae of his stupid neighbour 
 to contend with him, before he can commence any alteration in his 
 management ... he is completely master of his land, which, in 
 its open state, is only half his own. This is strongly evident in the 
 cultivation of turnips, or other vegetables for the winter consump- 
 tion of cattle ; they are constantly cultivated in inclosures, when 
 they are never thought of in the open fields in some parts." In 
 the North Riding " few open or common fields now remain, nearly 
 the whole having long been inclosed." * But on the commons the 
 practice of surcharging is said to have increased to " an alarming 
 degree." It had become a frequent custom for persons, often 
 dwelling in distant townships, to take single fields which were 
 entitled to common rights, and stock the commons with an excessive 
 quantity of cattle. In Cumberland (1794),^ there were still 160,000 
 
 1 NorOamberland, by J. BaUey and O. Culley (Srd edition, 1805), p. 126. 
 
 * Granger's Durham (1704), p. 44. 
 
 ■ Broom's Wat Biding of Yorkthire (1799), pp. 131, 133. 
 
 * Take's North Riding (1800), pp. 90, 199. 
 
 * OumberJond, by J. BaUey and G. Culley (1794), pp. 202, 215, 236. 
 
NORTH AND NORTH-WESTERN DISTRICT 227 
 
 acres of improvable common, which were " generally oreistocked." 
 " No improvement of breed was possible, while a man's ewes mixed 
 promiscuously with his neighbour's flocks." There were "few 
 commons bnt have parts which are liable to rot, nor can the sheep 
 be prevented from depastoring it." " If any part of the flock 
 had the scab or other infectious disease, there was no means of 
 preventing it from spreading." A large part of these commons 
 was good corn-land ; if enclosed, and part ploughed for grain crops, 
 not only would there be an increased supply of com, but, instead 
 of " the ill-formed, poor, starved, meagre animalH that depasture 
 it at present," there might be " an abundant supply of fat mutton 
 sent to our big towns." In Cheshire (1794),^ there were said to 
 be of " common fields, probably not so much as 1000 acres." 
 StafEordshire ^ in 1808 contained Uttle more than 1000 acres of open- 
 fields, which " are generally imperfectly cultivated, and exhausted 
 by hard tillage." Since the reduction of their area, the general 
 produce of the county is stated to be greater, the stock better, and 
 the rent higher by 5s. an acre. The county was " emerging out of 
 barbarism." But, thirty years before, on some of the " best land 
 of the county," the rotation had been " (1) fallow ; (2) wheat ; 
 (3) barley ; (4) oats ; and often oats repeated, aiid then left to 
 Nature ; the worst lands left to pasture and spontaneous rubbish ; 
 tamips and artificial grasses scarcely at all known in farming." 
 In Derbyshire ' (1811), a list of the thirteen open arable fields which 
 remained is given. " Many of them," aa-ya the Reporter, " must 
 remain in their present open, unproductive, and disgraceful state, 
 (though principally in the best stratum in the County) " owing to 
 the expense of enclosure. There were, however, still thirty-six 
 open commons, such as Elmton, with its " deep cart-ruts, and 
 every other species of injury and neglect that can, perhaps be 
 shown on useful land ; part of it has been ploughed at no distant 
 period, as completely exhausted as could be, and then resigned to 
 Weeds and Paltry " ; or Hollington, which, " though overgrown 
 with Rushes through neglect, is on a rich Red Marl soil " ; or 
 Roston, " miserably carted on, cut up, and in want of Draining ; 
 in wet seasons it generally rots the sheep depastured on it ; . . . pro- 
 bably injurious, rather than beneficial, in its present state, both to 
 the Parishioners and the Public." 
 
 I Wedge's Cheshire (1794), p. 8. * Pitt's Staffordthire (1808), pp. 13. 61. 313. 
 * Fszejr's Derbyshire (1813). voL ii. p. 77. 
 
228 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 2. In the West Midland and South-Weatem District, Shropshire 
 (1794) ^ " does not contain much common field lands, most of these 
 having been formerly enclosed, and before acts of parliament for 
 that purpose were in use ; but the inconvenience of the property 
 being detached and intermixed in small parcels, is severely felt, 
 as is also the inconvenience of having the farm buildings in villages." 
 There still remained large commons of which the largest were Giun 
 Forest and Morfe Common, near Bridgnorth. The Reporter 
 strongly advocates their enclosure. " The idea of leaving them in 
 their unimproved state, to bear chiefly gorse bushes, and fern, is 
 now completely scouted, except by a very few, who have falsely 
 conceived that the inclosing of them is an injury to the poor ; but 
 if those persons had seen as much of the contrary effects in that 
 respect as I have, I am fully persuaded their opposition would 
 at once cease. Let those who doubt, go round the commons now 
 open, and view the miserable huts, and poor, ill-cultivated, im- 
 poverished spots erected, or rather throum together, and inclosed by 
 themselves, for which they pay 6d. or Is. per year, which, by loss 
 of time both to the man and his family, affords them a very 
 trifle towards their maintenance, yet operates upon their minds 
 as a sort of independence ; this idea leads the man to lose many 
 days work by which he gets a habit of indolence ; a daughter kept 
 at home to milk a poor half -starved cow, who being open to tempta- 
 tions, soon turns harlot, and becomes a distressed, ignorant mother, 
 instead of making a good useful servant." 
 
 Herefordshire^ (1794) contained a great number of open-field 
 farms, occupying some of " the best land of the coimty," and 
 puiBuing the " invariable rotation of (1) fallow, (2) wheat, (3) pease 
 or oats, and then fallow again." Speaking of the waste lands at 
 the foot of the Black Mountains above the Golden Valley, the 
 Reporter says : " I do appeal to such gentlemen as have often 
 served on Grand Juries in this county, whether they have not had 
 more felons brought before them from that than from any other 
 quarter of the county." He attributes this lawlessness to the 
 right, which the cottager possessed in virtue of his arable holding, 
 of turning out stock on the hills, and to the encouragement which 
 this right afforded him of living by any means other than his 
 labour. 
 
 1 Bishton's Bhropahin (1794), pp. 8, 24. 
 
 2 Clark's Henfordthirt (1794), pp. 69, 28. 
 
WEST MIDLAia) AND SOUTH-WESTERN DISTRICT 229 
 
 Worcest^ahire ^ (1794) contained from 10,000 to 20,000 acres of 
 wastes, "in general depastuied by a miserable breed of sheep, 
 bdonging to the adjoining cottagers and occupiers, placed there 
 for the sake of their fleeces, the meat of which seldom reaches the 
 market, a third fleece being mostly the last return they live to 
 make." Tet, adds the Reporter, " most of the common or waste 
 land is capable of being converted into tillage of the first quality." 
 Gonsid^able tracts still lay in open-fields, especially in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Bredon, Ripple, and to the east of Worcester. " The 
 advantages from inclosing common fields . . . have been very 
 considerable ; . . . the rent has always risen, and mostly in a very 
 great proportion ; the increase of produce is very great, the value 
 of stock has advanced almost beyond conception ; . . . indeed it 
 is in incloBOT^ alone, that any improvement in the fine of breeding 
 in general can be made." Speaking of the district towards the 
 Gloucestershire border, it is stated that " the lands being in com- 
 mon fields, and property much intermixed, there can be of course 
 but little experimental husbandry ; being, by custom, tied down 
 to three crops and a fallow. . . . The mixture of property in our 
 fields prevents our land being drained, and one negligent farmer, 
 from not opening his drains, will frequently flood the lands of ten 
 that lie above, to the very great loss of his neighbours and com- 
 munity at large. Add to this, that although our lands are naturally 
 well adapted to the breed of sheep, yet the draining etc. is so little 
 attended to in general, that, out of at least 1000 sheep, annually 
 pastured in our open fields, not more than forty, on an average, are 
 annually drawn out for slaughter, or other uses ; infectious disorders, 
 lot, scab, etc. sweep them oS, which would not be the case if property 
 were separated." Of the pasture commons, it is said that they are 
 " overstocked," " produce a b^garly breed of sheep," and " are 
 of little or no value." Again, it is stated that, where enclosures 
 " have been completed fifteen or twenty years, property is trebled ; 
 the lands drained ; and if the land has not been converted into 
 pasture, the produce of grain very much increased ; where converted 
 into pasture, the stock of sheep and cattle wonderfully improved. 
 Where there are large commons, advantages are innumerable, 
 to population as well as cultivation, and instead of a horde of 
 pilferers, yon obtain a skilful race, as well of mechanics as other 
 labourers." 
 
 ' Pomeioy'B Woree»tenhire (1794), pp. 17, 16, App. pp. 2, 3, 5. 
 
230 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 In Gloucestershire ^ (1794) common fields and common meadows 
 stiU prevailed over extensive districts. Of the Gotswold district 
 the Reporter says : " probably no part of the kingdom has been 
 more improved within the last forty years than the Cotswold Hills. 
 The first inclosures are about that standing ; but the greater part 
 are of a later date. Three parishes are now inclosing ; and out of 
 about thirteen, which still remain in the common field state, two, 
 I understand, are taking the requisite measures for an inclosure : the 
 advantages are great, rent more than doubled, the produce of every 
 kind proportionably increased." Of the Vale of Gloucester he 
 says : " I know one aere which is divided into eight lands, and 
 spread over a large common field, so that a man must travel two 
 or three miles to visit it all. But though this is a remarkable 
 instance of minute diviraon, yet, it takes place to such a degree, as 
 very much to impede all the processes of husbandry. But this is 
 not the worst ; the lands shooting different ways, some serve as 
 headlands to turn on in ploughing others ; and frequently when 
 the good manager has sown his com, and it is come up, his slovenly 
 neighbour turns upon it, and cuts up more for him, than his own is 
 worth. It likewise makes one occupier subservient to another in 
 cropping his land ; and in water furrowing, one sloven may keep 
 the water on, and poison the lands of two or three industrious 
 neighbours." Lot meadows were numerous in the county, on which 
 the herbage was common after hay-making. Several tracts such 
 as Corse Lawn, Huntley and Gorsley Commons were practically 
 wastes, " not only of very little real utility, but productive of one 
 very great nuisance, that of the erection of cottages by idle and 
 dissolute people, sometimes from the neighbourhood, and sometimes 
 strangers. The chief building materials are store-poles, stolen from 
 the neighbouring woods. These cottages are seldom or never the 
 abode of honest industry, but serve for harbour to poachers and 
 tiueves of all descriptions." In the Vale of Tewkesbury the common 
 fields were " very subject to rot. . . . Though it is reckoned they 
 (farmers) lose their flocks once in three years on average, there is a 
 considerable quantity kept, the farmers being persuaded they could 
 not raise com without them. The arable fields after harvest are 
 stocked without stint. When spring seedtime commences, they 
 are confined to the fallow quarter of the field, and stinted in pro- 
 portion to the properties ; they are folded every night, and kept 
 > Tomer's Olouealenhire (1794), pp. 10, 39, 49. 
 
GLOUCESTERSHIRE IN 1794 AND 1807 231 
 
 BO hard, that scarce a blade of grass or even a thistle escapes them ; 
 and this management is thought essentially necessary, especially 
 on the stifi soils, to keep them in good order, such soils being too 
 hard to plough in very dry weather, and, of coarse, not eligible in 
 wet. The grass and weeds, without this expedient, would often 
 get so much ahead as not to be afterwards conquered." 
 
 Another agricultural Report on Gloucestershire^ was presented 
 in 1807. The Reporter mentions that, in the reign of George m., 
 " more tiian seventy Acts have passed the ParUament for inclosing 
 or laying into severalty." " By these proceedings, the landlord 
 and occupier are benefited ; the former in an advance of rent, the 
 latter in the increase of crops. On the Ootswolds, many thousand 
 acres are brought into cultivation, which before were productive 
 of Uttie more than furze and a few scanty blades of grass. In the 
 Vale, by the inclosure of common fields, lands have been laid 
 together, and rescued from the immemorial custom, or routine of 
 crops — ^wheat, beans, and fallow ; and the farmers have found, to 
 their great advantage, that clover, vetches and turnips may be 
 raised in the fallow year, which was before attended only with 
 labour and expense." The Reporter enumerates five advantsiges 
 resulting from enclosure of common field farms : — (1) an increase 
 of crops and rent ; (2) the commutation of tithes ; (3) the drainage 
 of the land ; (4) the removal of the injury and cause of disputes 
 occasioned by turning on the head- and fore-lands of neighbours ; 
 <5) the encouragement of population. Of the advantages of enclos- 
 ing common pastures or wastes he is equally convinced ; " the 
 common or waste lands in the Vale are seldom stinted to a definite 
 quantity of stock in proportion to the number of acres occupied ; 
 but the cottager claims by custom to stock equally with the largest 
 landholder. It is justly questioned whether any profit accrues to 
 either from the depasturing of sheep, since the waste commons, 
 being under no agricultural management, are usually poisoned by 
 stagnated water, which corrupts or renders unwholesome the 
 herbage, producing rot, and other diseases in the miserable animals 
 that are turned adrift to seek their food there." Since 1794 Ciorse 
 Common had been enclosed. From the results the Reporter of 1807 
 illustrates some of the benefits of enclosure. " The supposed 
 advantages derived by cottagers, in having food for a few sheep and 
 geese on a neighbouring common, have usually been brought f or- 
 I Badge's GlfiueegtersMre (1807). pp. 89, 260. 
 
232 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 watd as objectioiis to the enclosing system. This question was much 
 agitated with regard to the inclosure of Corse Chaoe in this 
 county; but if the present state and appearance of it, since the 
 inclosure in 1796, be contrasted to what it was before, or its present 
 produce of com to the sheep that used to run over it, Uttle doubt 
 can remain of the advantageous result in favour of the community ; 
 1350 acres of wet and rushy waste were inclosed, and, in the first 
 year of cultivation, the produce was calculated at 20,250 bushels 
 of wheat, or of some other crop in equal proportion. If it could 
 even be proved that some cottagers were deprived of a few trifling 
 advantages, yet the small losses of individuals ought not to stand 
 in the way of certain improvements on a large scale." The Reporter 
 also quotes two Cotswold parishes, formerly open-fields, but now 
 enclosed, as examples of increased produce. In Aldsworth, the 
 annual produce of com rose from 720 quarters to 2300 quarters ; 
 in Eastington, it increased from 690 quarters to 2100 quarters. 
 He adds that enclosures encouraged labour. " Labourers, who 
 formerly were under the necessity of seeking employment in London 
 and other places, now find it in sufficient quantity at home in. 
 their respective parishes." 
 
 In Somersetshire ^ (1797) the two largest districts of waste land 
 were the Brent Marsh and King's Sedgmoor. The Reporter 
 describes the Brent Marsh as a country which had " been hereto- 
 fore much neglected, probably on account of the stagnant waters,. 
 and unwholesome air. But of late many efforts have been mad& 
 to improve the soil, by draining and enclosing, under a variety of 
 Acts of Parliament. The benefit resulting therefrom has beea 
 astonishing." The total area was over 20,000 acres, of which 
 many thousands, " heretofore overflown . . . and of little or no 
 value, are become fine grazing and dairy lands." Besides the- 
 general improvement to the health of the district, " scarcely & 
 farmer can now be found who does not possess a considerable landed 
 property ; and many whose fathers lived in idleness and sloth, on 
 the precarious support of a few half-starved cows, or a few limping 
 geese, are now in affluence." On the South Marsh, chiefly formed 
 by the river Parret, " near thirty thousand acres of fine land are 
 frequently overflown for a considerable time together, renderings 
 the herbage unwholesome for the cattle, and the air imhealthy to 
 the inhabitants." An Act of ParUament had been recently (1791 > 
 1 BillingBley's BomeraeUiMre (1797), pp. 167-73, 188. 
 
DORSETSHIRE AND WILTSHIRE 23* 
 
 obtained for draming a portion of this fen called King's Sedgmoor, 
 containing " aboat 20,000 acres." 
 
 The Doisetshiie ^ commons in 1794 were " generally overrun 
 with fnize and ant-hills," worth 8s. an acre unenclosed, bat " highly 
 proper to cultivate, and, if converted, would be worth from 18s. 
 to 20s. an acre." A second Report on Dorsetshire waa issued in 
 1812.* The Reporter calls attention to the " half year meads." 
 One person has the hay, and another person the " after-shear." 
 These meadows were not near commonable fields, and the origin 
 of the claim is not clear. Obviously, neither of the persons who 
 shared the produce was likely to attempt to improve the herbage. 
 
 In Wiltshire • (1794) the Reporter fixes on four disadvantages of 
 open-field husbandry : (1) the obligation to plough and crop all 
 soils alike ; (2) the impossibility of improving sheep ; (3) the diffi- 
 culty of raising food for their winter keep ; (4) the expense, trouble, 
 and excessive number of horses required to cultivate detached 
 dispersed lands. On the south-east side of the county lay a con- 
 siderable tract of open-fields, and in the north-west, in the 
 centre of the richest land of the district, were scattered numerous 
 commons. The open arable fields are said to be in "a very 
 bad state of husbandry," and the common pastures in a " very 
 neglected unimproved " condition. " There are," says the Reporter, 
 " numerous instances in which the common-field arable land lets 
 for less than half the price of the inclosed arable adjoining ; and the 
 commons are very seldom reckoned worth anything, in valuii^ any 
 estate that has a right on them." For the last half-century very 
 little land had been enclosed, " although the improvement on the 
 lands, heretofore inclosed, has been so very great." " The reason 
 seems to have been the very great difficulty and expence of making 
 new roads in a country naturally wet and deep, and where the old 
 public roads were, till within the last few years, almost impassable." 
 Good turnpike roads had now been introduced ; villages were 
 energetic in repairing the approaches to them ; and " it is to be 
 hoped that so great an improvement as that of inclosing and 
 cultivating the commonable lands will no longer be neglected." 
 The crying need was the want of drainage. The common pastures 
 
 1 daridge's Dorsetshire (1793), p. 43. 
 
 > Stevenson's Dorsetshire (1812), p. 307. 
 
 * Davis' Wiltshire (1794), p. 136. This is, perhaps, the beet of all the agri- 
 cnltoral Reports. 
 
234 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 from Westbuiy to Orioklade were in a " wet rotten state," depas- 
 tured by an " unprofitable kind of stock," but " wanting only 
 inclosing and draining to make them as good pasture land as many 
 of the surrounding inclosures." Some of the cold arable fields 
 would have been much more valuable if turned to pasture, and, in 
 their undrained state, even the driest were " not safe for sheep in 
 a wet autumn." 
 
 3. From the Sovth-Eastem and Midland District the evidence is 
 the fullest, because the district was still in a great measure farmed 
 on the open-field system. 
 
 In Berkshire^ (1794) there were 220,000 acres of open-fields, 
 and downs, to 170,000 acres of inclosed land. Half of the county 
 " is still lying in common fields ; and though it is not divided into 
 such very small parcels as in some other counties, the farmer 
 labours under all the inconvenience of commonable land ; and by 
 that, is withheld from improving or treating his land, so as to 
 return the produce which it ought to do, if entire, and under a 
 good course of husbandry." " We generally see on all the commons 
 and waste lands, a number of miserable cattle, sheep, and horses, 
 which are a disgrace to their respective breeds, and the cause of 
 many distempers." 
 
 In Buckinghamshire^ (1794) 91,906 acres remained in open- 
 fields. The Reporters point out that " the slovenly operations of 
 one man are often of serious consequence to his neighbours, 
 with whose property his lands may lie, and generally do lie, very 
 much intermixed. Every one is aware of the noxious quality of 
 weeds, whose downy and winged seeds are wafted by every wind, 
 and are deposited upon those lands which are contiguous to them ; 
 and which before were perhaps as clean as the nature of them 
 would admit, to the manifest injury of the careful and attentive 
 farmer. Inclosures would, in a certain degree, lessen so great an 
 evil ; they would also prevent the inroads of other people's cattle, 
 as particularized in the parish of Wendover, and in which one man 
 held eighteen acres in thirty-one different allotments." 
 
 Oxfordshire ' in 1794 contained " upwards of an hundred unin- 
 olosed parishes or hamlets." The Reporter enumerates several 
 advantages of enclosure. " The first of these is getting rid of the 
 
 1 Pearce'B Berkshire (1794), pp. 13, 49, 69. 
 
 > Jamee' and Malcolm's Buekinghanuhire (1794), pp. 32, 68. 
 
 > Davis's Oxfordshire (1794), pp. 22, 30. 
 
OXFORDSHIRE IN 1794 AND 1809 236 
 
 restrictions of the former coarse of husbandry, and appropriating 
 each of the various sorts of land to that use to which it is best 
 adapted. 2. The prevention of the loss of time, both as to labourers 
 and cattle, in travelling . . . from one end of a parish to another ; 
 and also in fetching the horses from distant commons before they 
 go to work. 3. There is a much better chance of escaping the 
 distempers to which cattle of all kinds are Uable from being mixed 
 with those infected, particularly the scab in sheep. This circum- 
 stance, in common fields, must operate as a discouragement to the 
 improvement of stock. ... 5. The great benefit which arises 
 from draining lands, which cannot so well, if at all, be done on 
 single acres and half acres, and would effectually prevent the rot 
 amongst sheep, so very common in open field land. 6. Lastly 
 the preventing of constant quarrels, which happen as well from the 
 trespasses of cattle, as by ploughing away from each others' land." 
 Otmoor, near IsUp, containing " about four thousand acres," is 
 mentioned as the largest and most valuable tract of waste in the 
 county. " This whole tract of land lies so extremely flat, that the 
 water, in wet seasons, stands on it a long time together, and of 
 coiuse renders it very unwholesome to the cattle, as well as the 
 neighbourhood. The sheep are thereby subject to the rot, and the 
 larger cattle to a disease called the moor evil. The abuses here 
 (as is the case of most commons where many parishes are concerned) 
 are very great, there being no regular stint, but each neighbouring 
 householder turns out upon the moor what number he pleases. 
 There are flocks of geese likewise kept on this common, by which 
 several people gain a livelihood." 
 
 In 1809, Arthur Young reported on Oxfordshire,^ where he 
 found that, in proportion to its extent, more land had been enclosed 
 since 1770 in the county than in any other part of England. Otmoor 
 and Wychwood Forest were still uninclosed wastes. Apart from 
 the question of productiveness, he urged that the enclosure of the 
 latter district was necessary on moral grounds. " The vicinity is 
 filled with poachers, deer-stealers, thieves, and pilferers of every 
 kind ; offences of almost every description abound so much, that 
 the offenders are a terror to all quiet and well-disposed persons ; 
 and Oxford gaol would be uninhabited, were it not for this fertile 
 source of crimes." Nearly one hundred parishes still remained in 
 open-fields. " It is," says Young, speaking of open-field practices, 
 1 Young's Oxford»h4re (1809), pp. 87, 236, 239. 102. 
 
236 OPEN-FIELD FABMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 " a well-known fact that men have ploughed their land in the 
 night for the express purpose of stealing a furrow from their 
 neighbour ; and at all times it is a constant practice in some to 
 plough from each other." " I have known," says one of his 
 informants, " years wherein not a single sheep totally kept in the 
 open field has escaped the rot." Yet on this same land, enclosed 
 and drained, not one sheep died from the rot in nineteen years. 
 
 In 1770, the South and East of Warwickshire had mainly con- 
 sisted of open-fields. Now (1794) ^ there still remained 50,000 
 acres. But in 1813 ^ it is reported that a very small area continued 
 in an unenclosed state. 
 
 Northamptonshire,^ in 1794, contained 89 parishes still in opeh- 
 fields. There was, therefore, " above one third of the whole 
 (county) by no means in the best state of cultivation of which it is 
 susceptible." The commons did not " yield pasturage," " at the 
 highest computation," which was worth more than " 6s. an acre. 
 Indeed, if the calculation was fairly made, the occupiers are not 
 benefited to the extent of half that sum, as the stock which they 
 send to depasture upon these commons is liable to so many diseases 
 and accidents, as, one year with another, nearly counterbalances 
 any advantages which can be derived from possessing this right. . . . 
 By every information that could be procured, it appeara that the 
 stock is not kept with a view to any profit that can possibly arise 
 from the sales, but merely as the means of cultivating and manuring 
 the soil. Indeed, long experience has evinced, that no species 
 of stock kept in these open fields can be carried to market on 
 terms nearly so advantageous as the same articles raised by those 
 farmers who occupy inclosed lands ; nor is it to be supposed, 
 considering the manner in which the stock is treated, that the 
 owners will pay much attention to the improvement of the different 
 breeds." As to the arable land, " the several occupiers must con- 
 form to the ancient mode of cultivation of each division or field 
 in which their lands are respectively situated ; from which it will 
 appear that one obstinate tenant (and fortunate must that parish 
 be accounted, where only one tenant of that description may be 
 found) has it in his power to prevent the introduction of any improve- 
 ment. . . . The tillage lands are divided into small lots of two or 
 
 1 Wedge's WarwickalwrR (1794), p. 20. 
 
 < Murray's Wanmckahire (1813), pp. 62, 144. 
 
 3 Donaldson's Northantt (1794), pp. 24, 29, 68. 
 
SOUTH-EASTERN AND MIDLAND DISTRICTS 237 
 
 three old-fashioned, broad, crooked ridges (gathered very high 
 towards the middle, or crown, being the only means of drainage 
 that the manner in which the lands are occupied will admit of), 
 and consequently the farmer possessing 100 acres must traverse 
 the whole extent of the parish, however large, in order to cultivate 
 this small portion." 
 
 In Leicestershire ^ (1800) very little open-field land was left 
 "not more than 10,000 acres." In Nottinghamshire* (1798) 
 enclosure was proceeding rapidly. " Good land, with extensive 
 commons," is said to be most capable of improvement ; " clay land 
 with small commons," to have been the least capable. Midway 
 between the two came " clay land with large commons." But 
 " even the worst " may be increased in value by a fourth, after 
 deducting all improvements. 
 
 In Middlesex' (1794) many thousands of acres of wastes lay 
 unenclosed — " an absolute nuisance to the public." The commons 
 of Enfield, Edmonton, and Tottenham were frequently flooded ; 
 but no efiort was made to keep the ditches scoured. In 1798 there 
 were still 17,000 acres of " common meadows, all capable of improve- 
 ment, not producing to the community in their present state more 
 than 4s. an acre." To the Reporter's eyes the commons were " a 
 real injury to the public," partly because they tempted the poor 
 man to settle on their borders, build a cottage out of the material 
 they afforded, and trust to his pigs and poultry for a living ; partly 
 because they became " the constant rendezvous of gypse;^, strollers 
 and other loose persons . . . the resort of footpads and highway- 
 men." The arable land of the county is estimated at 23,000 acres, 
 of which, in 1798, 20,000 were in open-fields. 
 
 In Hampshire* (1813) the Reporter foimd the commons so over- 
 stocked as to produce little or no substantial benefit to those who 
 enjoyed the grazing rights, and the surface " shamefully deterio- 
 rated " by the exercise of rights of turbary or paring turf for 
 fuel. He hopes to see " every species of intercommonable rights 
 extinguished," and, with them, " that nest and conservatory of 
 sloth, idleness, and misery, which is uniformly to be witnessed in 
 
 > Pitt's Leioesterthire (1800), p. 68. 
 
 > Lowe's Nottingtianukire (1798), pp. 19, 166. 
 
 • Foot's Middlesex (1794), pp. 30, 32, amd Middleton's Middltsez (1798), pp. 
 98, 103, 138. 
 
 •Vancouver's Hampthirt (1813), pp. 318, 496. 
 
238 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 the Tioinity of all commons, waste-lands, and forests throughout 
 the kingdom." 
 
 4. In the Eastern and North-Eaetem counties, neither Essex 
 nor Hertfordshire possessed many commons or open-field farms. 
 A description of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Epping 
 and HaJnault Forests in Essex (1795) has been already quoted.^ 
 In Hertfordshire ' (1795) the Reporter notes that the few remaining 
 open-fields had been freed from the old restraints, and were cul- 
 tivated as if they were held in separate occupation. Speaking of 
 pasture commons, he says : " Where wastes and commons are 
 most extensive, there I have perceived that cottagers are the most 
 wretched and worthless ; accustomed to reUe on a precarious and 
 a vagabond subsistence, from land in a state of Nature, when 
 that fails they recur to pilfering. . . . For cottagers of this descrip- 
 tion the game is preserved and by them destroyed." Of Cheshunt 
 Common * (1813) it is stated that " the common was not fed by the 
 poor, but by a parcel of jobbers, who hired cottages, that they 
 might eat up the whole." 
 
 Two-thirds of the county of Huntingdon* in 1793 lay in open- 
 fields. Proprietors rarely had more than two or three acres con- 
 tiguous. " The residue Ues in acres and half acres quite disjointed, 
 and tenants under the same land-owner cross each other con- 
 tinually in performing their necessary daily labour. . . . The sheep 
 of the common fields and commons are of a very inferior sort, 
 except in some few instances, and httle if any care is taken either 
 in the breeding, feeding or preserving them ; and from the neglected 
 state of the land on which they are depastured, and the scanty 
 provision for their support in winter, and the consequent diseases 
 to which they are liable, their wool is also of a very inferior quality." 
 
 On the uplands of Lincolnshire ^ (1794) there were but few open- 
 field farms. " The sheep of the common fields," says the Reporter, 
 " I do not bring into this account from the circumstances of hard- 
 ship, attending the scantiness of their food, the wetness of their 
 layer, the neglect of a proper choice in their breed, their being 
 overheated in being (where folded) dogged to their confinement, 
 
 > See p. 154. 
 
 > Walker's Hertfordihire (170S), pp. 48, 63. 
 * Young's Hertfordthire (1804), p. 46. 
 
 < Stone's Htmtingdonthire (1703), pp. 8, 17, 16. 
 
 > Stone's Lineoinahire (1704), p. 62. 
 
LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE EAST RIDING 239 
 
 where they are often too much crowded ; the scab, the rot, and 
 every circumstance attend them, which can delay their being 
 profitable ; so that it may be reasonably concluded, that they are 
 of less value than those bred in inclosures, from 10s. to 15s. per 
 head, and their fleeces are equally unproductive." Five years 
 later Arthur Young reported on this part of the county.^ He 
 describes the true Lincolnshire cattle which he found on open- 
 field farms as a " wretched " breed ; " they all run together on a 
 pasture, without the least thought of selection." At three years 
 old, they were worth little more than half what they fetched on 
 enclosed land. Open-field farmers " breed four or five calves 
 from a wretched cow before they sell it, so that a great quantity 
 of food is sadly misapphed." It was from this " post-legged, 
 square-buttocked breed of demi-elephants," to use Marshall's 
 description, that the Navy beef of England was chiefly provided. 
 The open-field sheep had not improved. " I never," says Young, 
 apparently with surprise, " saw a fold in the county, except in a 
 few open fields about Stamford ; . . . but the sheep are miserably 
 bad ; in wool 8 or 9 to the tod." In the East Riding ' of Yorkshire 
 (1794) the pasture commons varied " in extent from two hundred 
 to two thousand five hundred acres, and all of them may be con- 
 verted into useful land by drains, sub-divisions, plantations, and 
 other improvements. . . . When commons are not stinted in 
 proportion to the stock they are capable of keeping, very little 
 benefit is derived from them. ... It is not a Uttle extraordinary 
 to see a starving stock upon a common of five hundred acres soaked 
 with water, when the expense of a few shillings for each right, 
 prudently laid out in drains and bridges, would double its value. 
 Such is the obstinacy of men, and so difScult is it to induce them 
 to form the same opinion ; though an union of sentiment would 
 much more materially promote their intei-est." 
 
 Norfolk ' in 1796 contained 80,000 acres of unimproved commons, 
 and about one-fourth of the arable area of the county was tilled 
 on the common or open-field system. " There is," says the Reporter, 
 who was the well-known Nathaniel Kent, " still a considerable deal 
 of common-field land in Norfolk, though a much less proportion 
 than in many other counties ; for notwithstanding common rights 
 
 > Young's Lincolnthire (1799), pp. 303. 374. 
 ' Leatham's Eatt Riding (1794), p. 39. 
 
 > Kent's NorfdUc (1796), pp. 6. 32, 72, 73, 81. 1S8. 
 
240 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 for great cattle eadst in all of them, and even sheep-walk privileges 
 in many, yet the natural industry of the people is such, that, when- 
 ever a person can get four or five acres together, he plants a white- 
 thorn hedge round it, and sets an oak at every rod distance, which 
 is consented to by a kind of general courtesy from one neighbour 
 to another." " Land," he elsewhere remarks, " when very much 
 <livided, occasions considerable loss of time to the occupier, in 
 going over a great deal of useless space, in keeping a communication 
 with the different pieces. As it lies generally in long narrow sUps, 
 it is but seldom it can receive any benefit from cross-ploughing and 
 harrowing, therefore it cannot be kept so clean ; but what is still 
 worse, there can be but little variety observed in the system of 
 cropping ; because the right which every parishioner has of com- 
 monage over the field, a great part of the year, prevents the sowing 
 of turnips, clover, or other grass seeds, and consequently cramps 
 a farmer in the stock which he would otherwise keep." Commons 
 of pasture lay " in all parts of the county, and are very difierent 
 in their quality. Those in the neighbourhood of Wymondham 
 and Attleborough are equal to the finest land in the county, worth, 
 at least, twenty shillings an acre ; being capable of making either 
 good pasture, or producing com, hemp or fiax. There are other 
 parts which partake of a wet nature and some of a furze and heathy 
 quality ; but they are most of them worth improving, and all 
 of them capable of producing something ; and it is a lamentable 
 thing, that those large tracts of land should be suffered to remain 
 in their present unprofitable state." Under the head of Poor 
 Rates, the Reporter observes " that the larger the common, the 
 greater the number and the more miserable are the poor." In 
 the parishes of Horsford, Heviogham, and Marsham, which " link 
 into each other, from four to nine miles from Norwich, there are 
 not less than 3,000 acres of waste land, and yet the average of the 
 rates are, at least, ten shillings in the pound. This shows the 
 absolute necessity of doing something with these lands, or these, 
 uncultivated, will utterly ruin the cultivated parts, — ^for these 
 mistaken people place a fallacious dependence upon these pre- 
 «arious commons, and do not trust to the returns of regular labour, 
 which would be, by far, a better support to them." Of WymondhaJm 
 Common, Arthur Young ^ wrote m 1801. The area was 2,000 
 acres ; but " the benefit to the poor is little or nothing further 
 ^ Inquiry into the propriety of applying Wattee, eto., 1801. 
 
BEDFORDSHIRE 241 
 
 than the keeping a few geese ; as to cows there are very few. 
 The common is so overstocked with sheep that cows would be 
 starved on it ; and these sheep are mostly in the hands of jobbers, 
 who hire small spots contiguous [to the common] for no other 
 purpose. These men monopohse ahnost the whole." 
 
 Bedfordshire in 1794 ^ was famous for its backward farming. 
 It still disputed with Cambridgeshire the reputation of being the 
 Boeotia of agriculture. It contained 217,000 acres of open or 
 common fields, common meadows, common pastures, and waste 
 lands, to 68,000 acres of enclosure and 22,000 acres of woodlands. 
 As a rule, the enclosed land was as badly farmed as the open-fields. 
 Hence the practice of enclosing had fallen into disrepute. The 
 Reporter seems to suggest another reason for the reluctance of 
 landlords to enclose. " It has," he says, " frequently occurred to 
 me in practice, that some of the occupiers of a common field are 
 pursuing the best possible mode of management the situations 
 are capable of, whilst others are reducing land intermixed there- 
 with to the lowest state of poverty, beggary and rubbish. , . . 
 Upon the inclosure of common fields it frequently occurs that 
 commissioners are obliged to consider such worn-out land of con- 
 siderably less value than such parts as have been well-farmed ; 
 of course, the proprietors, whose misfortune it has been to have 
 their land badly occupied, have had a smaller share, upon the 
 general division of the property, than they otherwise would have 
 had, in case their land had been better farmed." In one respect 
 enclosed land had the advantage. Sheep in Bedfordshire were 
 practically only used as manure-carriers. They were " generally 
 of a very unprofitable quality, but more especially those bred in 
 the common fields, where the provision intended for their main- 
 tenance is generally unwholesome and scanty. . . . From the 
 undrained state of the conunons and common fields, the stock of 
 sheep depastured upon them is but too frequently swept away by 
 the rot ; and, it being absolutely necessary, according to the present 
 system of farming, that their places should be constantly suppUed 
 with others for the folding of the land, under such circumstances 
 of casualty and necessity, the healthiness of the animal when 
 purchased is the first and almost the only object of consideration 
 with the farmers." Sheep, from any county, of any breed, and of 
 any description, were therefore bought indiscriminately. Nine- 
 
 1 Stone's Bedfordshire (1794) pp. 11, 61, 31. 
 Q 
 
242 OPEN-FIELD FAEMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 tenths of the sheep of the common fields of the countiy are " coarse 
 in their heads and necks, proportionately large in their bones, high 
 on the leg, narrow in their bosoms, shoulders, chines and quarters, 
 and light in their thighs, and their wool is generally of a very in- 
 different quality, weighing from three to four pounds per fleece. . . . 
 The sheep bred upon the inclosures are generally of a much superior 
 quality . . . very useful and profitable." Thirteen years later 
 (1807),^ 43 parishes, or about a third of the county, were farmed 
 on the open-field system. To the rapid spread of enclosures and to 
 the influence and example of great landlords, the Reporter attributed 
 the material improvement in the sheep stock of the county. 
 
 Out of 147,000 acres of arable land in Cambridgeshire' (17^4) 
 132,000 lay in open-fields. The rental of the enclosed land averaged 
 18s. per acre, and that of the open-fields lOs. On the uplands 
 of the county, as distinguished from the fen districts, there were 
 2,000 acres of half-yearly meadow lands which were grazed by the 
 village partners from hay-harvest till Easter ; 7,500 acres of high- 
 land common ; 8,000 acres of fen or moor common, which, though 
 easily drained, " contribute little to the support of the stock, though 
 greatly to the disease of the rot in the sheep and cows." The 
 Reporter considered that no general improvement of the farming 
 of the county was possible until the intermixed lands of " the com- 
 mon open fields " were laid together and occupied in severalty. He 
 made it part of his business to enquire into the feeling of " the 
 yeomanry in their sedate and sober moments ... as to this 
 important innovation upon the establishment of ages. A few have 
 given an unqualified dissent, but they were flock-masters ; others 
 have concurred under certain limitations, but the mass of the 
 farmers are decidedly for the measure in question." He estimates 
 that the general average produce per acre of enclosed land exceeded 
 that of the open-fields in the following proportions : wheat, 3 
 bushels 1 peck ; rye, 3 pecks ; barley, 15 bushels 1 peck ; oats, 
 1 bushel 1 peck ; peas, 2 bushels 1 peck. " But, if a single instance 
 be adverted to, and a comparison made between the parishes of 
 Childersley, which is enclosed, and Hardwicke, which remains in 
 open common field, and which parishes appear by the journal to 
 consist of a perfectly similar soil," the result is much more favour- 
 able to enclosures. Childersley produced 24 bushels of wheat to 
 
 1 Bstchelot's Bedfordshire (1808), pp. 217, 637. 
 
 'Vancouver's Cambridgeshire (1794), pp. 193, 203, 196, 112, 111. 
 
THE FEN-LANDS 243 
 
 Hardwicke's 16 bushels ; 36 bushels of barley to 18 bushels ; 36 
 bushels of oats to 18 bushels, or 20 bushels of oats to 8 bushels. To 
 this increase of produce must be added another advantage. Chil- 
 dersley and Knapwell, both enclosed, were entirely exempt from the 
 rot among their sheep, while the neighbouring parishes were 
 desolated by the disease. The ravages of the rot which are 
 chronicled may probably have been exceptional. On the open- 
 fields of Gamlingay a fourth of the flock, or 340 sheep, perished in 
 1793. The mortality is attributed to the want of drainage in the 
 arable land. At Groxton in 1793 1,000 sheep were rotted on the 
 unenclosed lands, and, in the same year, 700 on the open-fields 
 of Eltsley. In 1813 another Report on Cambridgeshire ^ was 
 issued. In the interval of twelve years, the area of open-field and 
 common had been greatly lessened. In consequence, says the 
 Reporter, Cambridgeshire farmers " have an opportunity of redeem- 
 ing the county from the imputation it has so long lain under, of 
 being the worst cultivated in England, and of proving (the fact) 
 that the same industry, spirit and skill which have been manifested 
 in other parts of the Kingdom, exist also in this, the open-field 
 state and system precluding the possibility of exercising them." 
 
 To the Eastern and North Midland districts mainly belonged 
 the fen-lands. This vast tract of waterlogged land still included 
 Peterborough Fen in Northamptonshire, embraced small portions 
 of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and extended over a considerable 
 part of Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, and lancoloshire. At 
 a moderate computation, the total area, which at the best was 
 imperfectly draiaed, and lay to a great extent unenclosed, com- 
 prised 600,000 acres. The drainage works of the seventeenth 
 century had only partially succeeded. Where the system had been 
 carefully watched and maintained, the land had been greatly 
 improved. But the neglected outfalls were once more choked with 
 silt ; the porous banks admitted the water almost as fast as it 
 was removed by the draining-mills ; in some instances they had 
 been broken down by floods and not repaired ; in some they had 
 been wilfully damaged or destroyed by the commoners. Yet much 
 of this drowned area, either actually or potentially, consisted of 
 some of the richest land in Great Britain. Some portions of the 
 drier ground were cultivated on the open-field system, and the 
 commons were numerous and extensive. 
 
 1 Gooch's Oambridgethire (1813), pp. 2, 66. 
 
244 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 Peterboroiigh Fen^ (1793) consisted of from 6,000 to 7,000 
 acres of " fine level land, of a soil equal to any perhaps in the king- 
 dom of Great Britain, and susceptible of the highest cultivation." 
 In its present wet state it was dangerous to stock. Farmers living 
 in the neighbourhood never turned their cattle on it except in very 
 diy seasons. It was, however, depastured by the horses, cattle, 
 and sheep of 32 parishes in the Soke of Peterborough. " Con- 
 sidering the present mode of management," says the Reporter, " it 
 is impossible that any advantage can arise to the persons having 
 right therein." But, in his opinion, the land, if properly drained, 
 enclosed, and tilled, might yield a greatly increased produce and 
 employ from 1300 to 1400 hands. 
 
 The Huntingdonshire fens' contained (1793) 44,000 acres. 
 Marshall speaks of " the disgraceful state in which some of these 
 lands were sufiered to remain (a blank in English territory)." The 
 Reporter says that the fen is " generally improductive, being 
 constantly either covered with water, or at least in too wet a state 
 for cultivation." Of so little value was it that those who exercised 
 rights over it frequently preferred relinquishing their claims to 
 paying the drainage taxes. Very considerable portions of the fen 
 districts were occupied by meres — shallow lakes filled with water 
 which was often brackish. Their only value lay in the reeds, which 
 were used for thatching or in malting, and in the fishing. But 
 many of the meres were so silted up with mud that the fish had 
 diminished in numbers. Their drainage, says the Reporter in 1811,^ 
 would be of inestimable service to the health of the inhabitants. 
 " They are awful reservoirs of stagnated water, which poisons the 
 aJr for many miles round about, and sickens and frequently destroys 
 many of the inhabitants, especially such as are not natives." 
 
 In Cambridgeshire* (1794) there were " 50,000 acres of improved 
 fen, and 200,000 acres of wastes and unimproved fen." Vancouver, 
 who was the Reporter to the Board, walked over every parish in 
 the district in order to obtain reliable information. Except on 
 foot, he could not penetrate into the recesses of the district. Neigh- 
 bouring parishes were ignorant of each other's condition. The 
 roads were often impassable, and at their best were only repaired 
 
 1 Donaldson's Notlhamjitoiuhire (1793), p. 30. 
 
 * Stone's HurOingdonthire (1793), pp. 8, 13. 
 
 * Parkinson's Huntingdonshire (1813), p. 21. 
 
 t Vancouver's CanOridguhire (1794), pp. 26, 36, 161. 164, 184, 186, 187, 149. 
 
CAMBRIDGESHIRE FENS 245 
 
 with a silt which resembled " pulverised sand." Almost every- 
 where he speaks of the " deplorable condition of the drainage," and 
 consequently of the " miserable state of cultivation " which pre- 
 vailed on the open-field lands. The fen-lands of Chatteris, Elm, 
 Leverington, Parson Drove, Wisbech St. Mary's and Thomey, 
 amounting to about 50,000 acres yield " a produce far beyond the 
 richest high lands in the county, averaging a rent of more than fifteen 
 shillings per acre. Whereas the waste, the drowned, and partially 
 improved fens, amounting on a moderate computation to 150,000 
 acres, cannot be fairly averaged at more than four shillings per 
 acre." Very rarely were the open-fields and commons even in a 
 fair state of cultivation. Wilburton was a favourable example. 
 There field-reeves had been appointed by the parish, with power 
 to open up neglected drains at the expense of those to whom they 
 belonged. But almost universally the common pasture was deterio- 
 rated by turf-cutting ; the marsh lands, if tUled, were exhausted 
 by barbarous cropping ; and effective drainage was prevented by 
 the intermixed condition in which the land was occupied. At 
 Snail well, an open upland parish, there was a fiock of 1,200 Norfolk 
 sheep, which were only " kept healthy by being prevented from 
 feeding upon the wet moory fen common." The general attitude 
 of the ague-stricken, opium-eating fen-men towards the drainage 
 of the district may be illustrated by the example of Burwell, a chalk- 
 land parish on the Suffolk border. " Any attempt in contempla- 
 tion of the better drainage " of Burwell fen, already " greatly 
 injured by the digging of turf," and " constantly inundated," is 
 " considered as hostile to the true interests of these deluded people." 
 In 1791 the principal Lincolnshire ^ commons were the East and 
 West (29,000 acres), the Wildmore Fen (10,500 acres), the East 
 and West Deeping Fens (15,000 acres). The East and West and 
 Wildmore Fens were " under better regulations than any others 
 in the fen country." " Yet," says the Reporter, " they are 
 extremely wet and unprofitable in their present state, standing much 
 in need of drainage, are generally overstocked, and dug up for turf 
 and fuel. The cattle and sheep depastured upon them are often 
 very unhealthy, and of an inferior sort, occasioned by the scanti- 
 ness, as well as the bad quality of their food, and the wetness of 
 their lair. Geese, with which these commons are generally stocked 
 . . . are often subject to be destroyed. It is not a constant prac- 
 1 Stone's LmcolntMre (1794), pp. 18, 22. 
 
246 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 tice with the commoners to take all their cattle off the fens upon the 
 approach of winter ; but some of the worst of the neat cattle, with 
 the horses, — and particularly those upon Wildmore Fen, — are left 
 to abide the event of the winter season ; and it seldom happens 
 that of the neat cattle many escape the effects of a severe winter. 
 The horses are driven to such distress for food that they eat up every 
 remaining dead thistle, and are said to devour the hair off the 
 manes and tails of each other and also the dung of geese." A 
 second Reporter ^ (1799), Arthur Young, speaks of " whole acres " 
 in Wildmore Fen as " covered with thistles and nettles four feet 
 high and more. There are men that have vast numbers of geese, 
 even to 1000 and more. ... In 1793 it was estimated that 40,000 
 sheep, or one per acre, rotted on the three fens (t.e. on East and West 
 and Wildmore Fens). So wild a country nurses up a race of people 
 as wild as the fen ; and thus the morals and eternal welfare of 
 numbers are hazarded and ruined for want of an inclosure. . . . 
 In discourse at Louth upon the characters of the poor, observations 
 were made upon the consequences of great commons in nursing 
 up a mischievous race of people ; and instanced that, on the very 
 day we were talking, a gang of villains were brought to Louth gaol 
 from Goningsby, who had committed numberless outrages upon 
 cattle and com ; laming, killing, cutting off tails, and wounding a 
 variety of cattle, hogs, and sheep ; and that many of them were 
 commoners on the immense fens of East, West, and Wildmore." 
 
 These descriptions apply to commons under the best regulations. 
 Deeping Fens may be taken as examples of the ordinary manage- 
 ment of Lincolnshire commons in the fen districts. " They stand," 
 thinks the Reporter of 1794,^ " very much in need of inclosing and 
 draining, as the cattle and sheep depa/Stured thereon are very 
 unhealthy. The occupiers frequently, in one season, lose four 
 fifths of their stock. These commons are without stint, and almost 
 every cottage within the manors has a common right belonging 
 to it. Every kind of depredation is made upon this land in cutting 
 up the best of the turf for fuel ; and the farmers in the neighbour- 
 hood, having common rights, avaUiag themselves of a fine season, 
 turn on 7 or 800 sheep each, to ease their inclosed land, whilst the 
 mere cottager cannot get a bite for a cow ; but yet the cottager, in 
 his turn, in a colourable way, takes the stock of a foreigner as his 
 own, who occasionally turns on immense quantities of stock in good 
 1 Young's Lineoinahire (1799), p. 223. * Stone's Lmcolruhire, p. 22. 
 
LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 247 
 
 seasons. The cattle and sheep, which are constantly depastured 
 on this common, are of a very unthrifty ill-shapen kind, from 
 being frequently starved, and no attention paid to their breed. 
 Geese are the only animals which are at any time thrifty ; and 
 these frequently, when young, die of the cramp, or, when plucked, 
 in consequence of the excessive bleakness and wetness of the com- 
 mons. A goose pays annually from Is. to 16d. by being 4 times 
 plucked. These commons are the frequent resort of thieves, who 
 convey the cattle into distant Counties for sale." 
 
 The North Fens round the Isle of Azhohn formed in 1794 another 
 large area (12,000 acres) of commons and wastes. If " divided 
 and inclosed," says the Reporter,^ they " would for the most part 
 make very valuable land ... in their present state, they are 
 chiefly covered with water, and in summer throw forth the coarsest 
 of productions ; the best parts, which are those nearest the enclosed 
 high lands, are constantly pared and burnt to produce vegetable 
 ashes. . . . The more remote parts of the common are dug up 
 for fuel. On account of the general wetness of those commons, 
 and their being constantly overstocked by the large occupiers of 
 contiguous estates, or in such seasons as the depasturage is desirable 
 in summer, to ease the inclosed land, the cattle and sheep necessarily 
 depastured thereon at all seasons being those of the cottagers, who 
 are for the most part destitute of provision for them in winter, are 
 always unthrifty, and subject to various diseases, which render 
 them very improfitable to the occupiers." The farmiog of the 
 open arable fields had, in the Reporter's opinion, deteriorated 
 rather than progressed. " If," he says,* " those gentlemen, whether 
 proprietors or agents, who have any concern in the management 
 of common fields, will examine into the present mode of occupancy 
 of the different classes of them . . . they will in most cases find 
 them in a weak impoverished state ; and that the original systematic 
 farming of them is either lost or laid aside, and that the agriculture 
 of the common fields of this county has rather declined than 
 improved." The Cambridgeshire Reporter,' it may be added, 
 formed the same opinion of the open-fields in that county, and 
 he produces some evidence to prove that the rental of open farms 
 had fallen since the seventeenth century. 
 
 The general impression left by this mass of evidence is that 
 the agricultural defects of the intermixture of land under the 
 » Stone, p. 29. * Stone, p. 66. » Vancouver, p. 97. 
 
248 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 open-field system were overwhelming and ineradicable ; that as 
 an instroment of land cultivation it had probably deteriorated 
 since the thirteenth century ; that no increased production or 
 general adoption of improved practices could be expected under the 
 ancient sjrstem. But the Reporters note exceptions, from which 
 other conclusions may possibly be drawn. In some districts the 
 customary rotations had been abandoned for independent cultiva- 
 tion, or modified so as to admit some variation of cropping. Thus, 
 by agreement, in Berkshire a portion of the fields was " hitched," 
 or, according to the Wiltshire equivalent, " hooked." In other 
 words, common rights of pasture on the arable land were suspended 
 so as to allow the cultivation of turnips, clover, or potatoes. Else- 
 where, again, portions of the arable land were withdrawn from 
 tillage to serve as cow-commons. Nor must it be supposed that 
 enclosed land was always better cultivated than open-field farms. 
 The Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire Reporters, for example, state 
 that in certain cases enclosure had produced no improvement, 
 and in Wiltshire the Reporter hints that open-field regulations at 
 least prevented some abuses to which land held in severalty was 
 liable. In some districts landlords imposed upon tenants of 
 separate holdings the same restrictions and course of cropping by 
 which they had been fettered as occupiers of land in open-fields. 
 Without a large expenditure on equipment the agricultural con- 
 ditions of enclosed land were often worsened, rather than bettered. 
 Thus the Somersetshire Reporter quotes an example from the 
 Mendip Hills, where, when land had been enclosed, the landlord 
 refused to erect the necessary buildings. Similar cases might 
 have been collected from many other parts of the country. In 
 these respects, as well as in others, landlords had yet to be taught 
 the business of owning and letting land. There were " Goths and 
 Vandals," not only among tenants, but also among own^s. 
 
 Before any accurate estimate can be formed of the agricultural 
 advantages or defects of arable farming on intermixed strips of 
 land subject to common grazing rights, and of stock breeding and 
 rearing on pasture commons, it is necessary to allow for some 
 possibilities of improvement by the cultivators of open-fields and 
 for some neglected opportunities by landlords and tenants of enclosed 
 land. But, when every reasonable allowance has been made, it is 
 clear that the balance was overwhelmingly in favour of separate 
 occupation. As an instrument of production the ancient system 
 
PROCEDURE m ENCLOSURES 249 
 
 was inferior. Every advance in science made by agricoltuie, and 
 every new resource which is adopted, only served to accentuate 
 the relative disadvantages of open-field farming. Change was, in 
 the circumstances, necessary. It was generally effected by obtain- 
 ing Parliamentary sanction for an enclosure. 
 
 The ordinary procedure,^ by which open-fields or commons were 
 enclosed under Pftrhamentary authority, opened with a Petition 
 presented to Parliament by persons locally interested. The Petition 
 was signed by the owner of the land or lord of the manor, by the 
 owner of the tithes, and by a majority of the persons interested. 
 No fixed rule seems to have been followed, as to the proportion of 
 consents and dissents. But Parliamentary Committees looked to 
 the values as well as to the numbers which were represented. On 
 this Petition, by leave of the House, a Bill was introduced, read a 
 first and second time, and then referred to a Committee, which 
 might consist of the whole House or of selected members. The 
 Committee, after receiving counter-petitions and hearing evidence, 
 reported to the House, that the standing orders had, or had not, 
 been complied with ; that the allegations were, or were not, true ; 
 that they were, or were not, satisfied that the parties concerned 
 had consented to the Bill. On the Committee's Report, the Bill 
 either was rejected, or was read a third time, passed, sent to the 
 Lords, and received the Royal Assent. If the Bill passed, the 
 Commissioners, or Commissioner, named in the Act, arrived at the 
 village. There they heard the claims of the persons interested, 
 and made their award, distributing the property in separate owner- 
 ship among those who had succeeded in establishing their claims, 
 with due regard to the " quality, quantity, and contiguity " of the 
 land. 
 
 The procedure was open to abuses. Even if it is assumed that 
 a Parliamentary Conunittee, largely composed of landed pro- 
 prietors, was always disinterested on questions affecting land, 
 little trouble seems to have been taken to elicit the opinions of 
 small claimants. Schemes of enclosure rarely began with a public 
 meeting of the parish. The principal owners generally met in 
 secret, arranged the points in which their own interests conflicted, 
 selected the solicitor and surveyor, nominated the Commissioners, 
 
 ^ An Esaay v/pon the nature and method of ascertaining the apeeific shares of 
 proprietors upon the indpsvre of common fiMs, by the Bev. Heniy SacheveieU 
 Homer (1766). 
 
250 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTDRE COMMONS 
 
 settled the terms of the petition. Even the next step— that of 
 obtaining signatures — ^might be taken privately. Sometimes it 
 happened that the first intimation which the bulk of the inhabitants 
 received of the scheme was that the petition had been presented, 
 and that leave to bring in an enclosure Bill had been granted. To 
 prevent so flagrant an abuse, clauses as to notice had been generally 
 inserted in Bills from 1727 onwards. But, in order to secure the 
 necessary publicity of proceedings, the House of Commons in 1774 
 made it a standing order that notice of the scheme must be affixed 
 to the door of the church of the parish affected, for three Sundays 
 in the months of August or September. Other standing orders 
 corrected other abuses in the procedure. They regulated the pay- 
 ments of the Commissioners, required them to account for all 
 monies assessed or expended by them, restricted the choice of men 
 who could fill the office, limited their powers of dealing with the 
 titles of claimants, and laid down the principle that the allotments 
 to titheowners and lords of manors should be stated in the Bill. 
 
 At all stages of the proceedings heavy costs were incurred. The 
 fees paid to ParUamentary officials were considerable. K a tract 
 of common land was to be enclosed, over which several parishes 
 claimed rights, fees were charged for each parish. On this ground, 
 partly, the Lincolnshire Reporter explains the delay in enclosing 
 the East and West and Wildmore Fens. Forty-seven parishes 
 were there affected, and the general Act would be charged as forty- 
 seven Acts, with fees in proportion. Witnesses had to attend the 
 Committee of the House of Commons and subsequently of the 
 House of Lords. There might be postponements, delays, and 
 protracted intervals ; but the witnesses, often professional men, 
 had either to be maintained in London or to make two or more 
 costly journeys to town. Such an expenditure was generally pro- 
 hibitive for the opponents of the Bill. Unable to fee lawyers, 
 produce witnesses, or urge their claims in person, they were obliged 
 to content themselves with a counter-petition, which, possibly, 
 might not be referred to the Committee. Nor did the cost cease 
 when the Bill was passed. There were still the expenses of the 
 Commissioners and their clerk ; the fees for the surveyor and his 
 survey, and the valuer and his valuation ; the charges of the 
 lawyers in proving or contesting claims, preparing the award, 
 and other miscellaneous business ; the outlay on roads, gates, 
 bridges, drainage, and other expenditure necessitated by the 
 
A GENERAL ENCLOSURE BILL 261 
 
 enclosure of the land. Where the area was large, a portion of the 
 land was usaally sold to pay the necessary expenses. But the 
 cost of fencing the portions allotted to individuals was thrown 
 upon the owners, and the smaller the allotment, the greater the 
 relative burden. Small men might well hesitate, apart from the 
 uncertainty of proving their title, to support an enclosure scheme, 
 since the value of their allotment might be almost swallowed up 
 in the expense of surrounding it with a hedge. 
 
 Many small tracts of common land were left unenclosed, because 
 the extravagant cost threatened to absorb the possible profits of 
 the undertaking. A general Enclosure Act would, it was urged, 
 reduce the cost of enclosing small areas, promote uniformity of 
 legislative action by embodying the best methods of procedure 
 and the most requisite safeguards which experience suggested, and 
 provide means for overcoming opposition by modif3nng the existing 
 powers of resistance. On all these grounds, a BOl was framed by 
 the Board of Agriculture. It was strongly opposed in ParUament.^ 
 Many persons were interested in the continuance of the existing 
 procedure. " What," asks one of the Board's Reporters, " would 
 become of the poor but honest attorney, ofl&cers of ParKament, and 
 a long train of etc, etc, who obtain a decent livelihood from the 
 trifling fees of every individual inclosure Bill — all these of infinite 
 use to the community, and must be encouraged whether the wastes 
 be enclosed or not ? . . . The waste lands, in the dribbling difficult 
 way they are at present inclosed, will cost the country upwards 
 of 20 millions to these gentry etc. which on a general Inclosure 
 Bill would be done for less than one." ^ The first Bill proposed 
 by the Board was rejected mainly through the influence of 
 these private interests. A further attempt was made in May, 1797, 
 when two Bills were introduced. The first was wrecked by the 
 opposition of titheowners. One of the chief advantages of enclosures 
 was that tithes were usually extinguished by an allotment of land 
 in lieu. This commutation of tithe was favoured by the Board, 
 which in consequence incurred the suspicion of being hostile to 
 the Established Church. The House of Lords seems to have been 
 particularly influenced by this view. Though the first of the two 
 Bills passed the Commons, it was rejected in the Upper House. 
 The second Bill did not advance beyond the Committee stage in 
 
 * Arthur Young's Lecture before the Board oj AgrteiHture, May, 1809. 
 ' Brown's West Biding, App. I., p. 14. 
 
252 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 
 
 the House of Commons. Finally, in 1801, the first General Enclosure 
 Act (41 Geo. III. c. 109) was passed " for consolidating in one Act 
 certain provisions usually inserted in Acts of Inclosure, and for 
 facilitating the mode of proving the several facts usually required 
 on the passing of such Acts." No alteration in the machinery of 
 enclosure was made. Private Acts of Parliament were still required. 
 But they were simplified, and to some extent the expense was 
 reduced. The effect was at once seen in an increase in the number 
 of private Acts and a diminution in the size of the areas which 
 each enclosed. 
 
 The Act of 1801 was mainly applied to commons. Open-fields 
 were specifically dealt with by subsequent legislation. In 1836, 
 an Act (6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 115) was passed " for faciUtating the 
 inclosure of open and arable fields." It empowered two-thirds 
 of the possessors of open-field rights, in number and value, to 
 nominate commissioners and carry out enclosure ; or seven-eighths, 
 in number and value, to enclose without the intervention of com- 
 missioners. The debate in Parliament is chiefly noticeable for 
 the stress which, for the first time since the days of Elizabeth, was 
 laid on the desirability of preserving commons as breathing-plaoes 
 and play-grounds. In the Bill itself the point was not really 
 raised. But, as the nineteenth century advanced, this aspect of 
 the question of enclosing commons and wastes became increas- 
 ingly important. It was prominent in the General Inclosure 
 Act of 1845 (8 and 9 Vic. c. 118). The principal change made in 
 this Act was the substitution of Inclosure Commissioners for the 
 Parliamentary Committee as a local tribunal of enquiry, before 
 which the necessary examination could be conducted on the spot. 
 But ParUamentary control was not abandoned. All the schemes 
 framed by the Commissioners in each given year were embodied 
 in a general Act, and submitted to Parliament for sanction. The 
 administration of the Inclosure Acts is now entrusted to the Board 
 of Agriculture. As a State department, the Board can deal with 
 open-fields and commons on broader lines than the strict inter- 
 pretation of the statute, which constituted their authority, allowed 
 to the Inclosure Commissioners. 
 
SMALL EFFECT OF THE CORN LAWS 253 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS.i 
 
 Difficnlty in deciding on the good or bad influence of the Com Laws ; Testiic- 
 tions on home as well as on foreign trade in com ; gradual abandonment of 
 the attempt to secure just prices by legislation ; means adopted to steady 
 prices ; prohibition both of exports and of imports : the bounty on home- 
 grown com ; the system established in 1670 and 1689 lasts till 1816 ; its 
 general effect ; influence of seasons from 1689 to 1764, and from 1766 to 
 1816 ; difSculty of obtaining foreign supplies during the Napoleonic wars ; 
 practical monopoly in the home market : small margin of home supply 
 owing to growth of population ; exaggerated eSect on prices of good or 
 bad harvests ; protection after 1816 ; demand by agriculturists for fair 
 profits ; changed conditions of supply ; repeal of the Com Laws, 1846. 
 
 Mes are apt to pass a hasty judgment on the Com Laws in accord- 
 ance with their political prejudices. One party condemns them as 
 mischievous ; another party approves them as salutary. Neither 
 troubles to consider their practical effect. Yet, from 1689 to 1815, 
 it is probable that the marked deficiency or abundance of the 
 harvest in any single year produced a greater effect on prices than 
 was produced by the Com Laws in the 125 years of their existence as 
 a complete system. 
 
 It is almost impossible to decide whether the total effect of the 
 Com Laws has been to promote or to retard agricultural progress. 
 Probably the balance of their influence in either direction would 
 be found to be inconsiderable. The utmost nicety of calculation 
 would be required in order to measure with any degree of accuracy 
 the extent to which, before 1815, they affected prices of com. 
 Before the balance can be correctly strack, the advance in price, 
 which was due to the increased demand consequent on the growth 
 of population and to the gradual depreciation of gold and silver, 
 must be discoimted ; the fall in price, which resulted from economy 
 in the cost and increase in the yield of production, must be 
 ' See Appendix III. 
 
254 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 eliminated ; an explanation must be offered of the facts that in 
 England, during the seventeenth century, wheat averaged only a 
 halfpenny the bushel cheaper than during the eighteenth century ,i 
 and that the general prices of Europe, under different fiscal systems, 
 did not, during the period, materially differ from those of England. 
 Still more difficult would it be to determine whether, taken as a 
 whole and over the entire period of their existence, they have 
 benefited or injured consumers, so far as these can be distinguished 
 from producers. If they aggravated evils in some directions, 
 they compensated them in others. Whatever else the legislation 
 effected, it did, except during the last few years of its operation, 
 steady prices, and to consumers steadiness was perhaps as great 
 a boon as a spasmodic cheapness which alternated with excessive 
 deamess. At a time when England was pra<3tically dependent on 
 home-grown supplies, prices of com were extravagantly sensitive 
 to fluctuations in the yield of harvests. The reason is obvious. 
 Average harvests provided bread enough for the population ; but 
 there was often httle margin to spare. A partial failure, therefore, 
 meant the prospect of dearth, if not of famine. In prolonged periods 
 of scarcity, like that of the Napoleonic wars, our ancestors might 
 pass self-denying ordinances to reduce their domestic consumption 
 by one-third, dispense with flour for their own wigs or the hair of 
 their lackeys, substitute clay imitations for the pastry of their 
 pies, forbid the sale of bread tiU it was twenty-four hours old, pro- 
 hibit the use of com in the making of starch or in distilleries. Yet, 
 in the case of a necessary like com, it was impossible to exercise 
 such economies as would make good any considerable shortage. 
 Hence com, when a deficient harvest was anticipated, was specially 
 liable to panic-stricken competition. Any falling off in the annual 
 yield caused a far greater advance in price than was justified by 
 the actual shortage. Somewhat similar, though less exaggerated, 
 was the effect of an anticipated abundance. The fall in price was 
 wholly disproportionate to the real surplus. These violent alterna- 
 tions between deamess and cheapness, if they had not been steadied 
 and regulated by the legislature, would have been disastrous to 
 both consumers and producers. 
 
 Beginning in the early Middle Ages, and ending in 1869, the 
 English Com Laws lasted for upwards of six centuries. Attention 
 
 ^ Seventeenth century, 38s. 2d. the quarter ; eighteenth century, 38s. 7d. 
 the quarter (Arthur Young's Progremive Value of Money, p. 76). 
 
RESTRICTIONS ON EXPORTS AND IMPORTS 255 
 
 has been so exclusively concentrated on one side only of their pro- 
 visions, that the regulation of the inland trade in com and the 
 restrictions on its exportation have been long forgotten. Yet, 
 except during the period 1815-46, the duties on foreign grain, which 
 are now regarded as the principal feature of the old Com Laws, 
 were of minor importance. The successive Cfovemments which 
 framed and revised the legislation on com were not more enlightened 
 than their contemporaries, for whose direction the regulations were 
 passed ; the ultimate effect of their measures was sometimes 
 miscalculated ; their policy varied from time to time ; different 
 objects were prominent at different periods. But it is impossible 
 to pass any summary sentence of condemnation on the Com Laws 
 as a system selfishly designed to enrich, at the expense of consumers, 
 a ruling class of landowning aristocrats. On the contrary, if the 
 legislation is treated as a whole, and the restrictions on both exports 
 and imports are examined together, it will be found that, up to 
 1815, the interests alike of consumers, producers, and the nation 
 were collectively and continuously considered. The general aim 
 of legislators was to maintain an abundant supply of food at fair 
 and steady prices ; to assist the agricultural industry in which, up 
 to the middle of the eighteenth century, the great mass of the people 
 were engaged as producers ; to prevent the depopulation of rural 
 districts, build up the commercial and maritime power of the nation, 
 make it independent of foreign food suppUes, and foster the growth 
 of the infant colonies. 
 
 Mediaeval Com Laws were based on principles of morahty, if 
 not of reUgion. They were akin to the laws against usury. It 
 was considered immoral to prey on human needs, or to take 
 advantage of scarcity by exacting more than a moderate profit on 
 the production of necessaries of life. The object of legislation was, 
 therefore, to establish " just " prices, and in the interest of con- 
 sumers to restrict the liberty of sellers. The idea that British com 
 might be cheapened by bringing the granaries of Eiurope into 
 competition with home suppUes had either not suggested itself, or 
 been rejected as impracticable. In order to establish just prices, 
 the methods of early legislators were various. They endeavoured 
 to attain their end, and, incidentally, to secure better profits to 
 producers, by keeping home-grown com in the country, by regulating 
 the inland trade, by penalising the intervention of middlemen 
 between farmers and their customers, by protecting buyers against 
 
256 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 the craft of bakers, by preventing monopolies and speculations in 
 grain which, in days when difficulties of transport restricted com- 
 petition to narrow areas fed by local supplies, were a real danger. 
 To this class of laws belong prohibitions against selling com out 
 of the country, or transporting it from one district to another ; 
 statutes ^ against corn-dealers who " forestalled," " engrossed," or 
 " regrated " grain ; and the Assizes of Bread,* which, down to the 
 reign of George 11., regulated the actual size of the loaf by the 
 price of com, instead of proportioning its cost to that of its material. 
 Eventually this class of legislation defeated its own object. 
 It hampered the natural trade in com, locked up the capital of 
 farmers, and so tended to reduce the area under the plough. But 
 the national dread of com speculation, of which many laws were 
 the expression, was only paralleled by the national horror of witch- 
 craft, and lasted longer among educated classes. As facilities for 
 internal transport increased, opportunities for local monopolies 
 diminished. Successive steps were taken towards freedom of 
 inland trade. Thus in 1571 com was permitted to be transported 
 from one district to another on pajnnent of a licence duty of Is. 
 a quarter ; in 1663 liberty to buy com in order to sell it again was 
 conceded, when it was below a certain limit, provided that it was 
 not resold for three months in the same market ; in 1772 the 
 statutory penalties against corn-dealers were repealed as tending 
 to " discourage the growth and enhance the price " of com ; in 
 1822 the practice of setting out Assizes of Bread was by Act of 
 Parliament discontinued in London ; in 1836 an Act, similar in terms 
 to that of London, abolished Assizes in provincial towns and country 
 districts. Instead of attempting to secure just prices by multiplying 
 laws in restraint of speculation, or by regulating the cost of com 
 and bread, the modem tendency has been to enforce honest dealing 
 by increasing the protection of consumers against false weights and 
 adulteration. 
 
 Other means were adopted to maintain steady prices in the 
 interest of consumers and, indirectly, of producers. Thus the 
 erection of pubUc granaries, in which farmers might store the 
 surplus of one year against the shortage of the next, was borrowed 
 from Holland, and urged on the coimtry by royal proclamation. 
 
 » E.g. 6 and 6 Edward VI. c. 14 (1562) ; 15 Car. II. e. 7 (1663) ; 12 Geo. 
 m. c. 71 (1772). 
 
 • See Appendix III. C. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL OF TAXATION 257 
 
 In 1620 the King's Council " wrote letters into every shire and 
 some say to every market-town, to provide a granary or store- 
 house, with stock to buy com, and keep it for a dear year." A 
 ainillar object inspired the subsequent institution of bonded ware- 
 houses under the King's lock (1663), in which foreign grain might 
 be stored, free of duty, until withdrawn for consumption. Restric- 
 tions on the exportation of home-grown com were governed by the 
 same desire to prevent excesses in surplus or deficiency, and to save 
 the country from violent oscillations between cheapness and dear- 
 ness. The much debated bounty on exports of grain was designed 
 to produce the same result. Even the regulation of imports of 
 foreign com was partly governed by the same desire to secure a 
 steady level of price. 
 
 At an early date prohibitions against exporting com were influ- 
 enced by pohtical motives of retaliation on the king's enemies, just as 
 the corresponding permission was affected by considerations of the 
 needs of the public treasury. Revenue, though never the first aim 
 of the Com Laws, was, in mediaeval times and again under the 
 Stewarts, a secondary object. To this extent the special interests, 
 not only of consumers and producers, but also of the nation, were 
 thus early brought into play. Originally, com was only exported 
 by those who had obtained, and in most cases bought, the king's 
 Ucence. But the exercise of the royal prerogative in the grant of 
 licences provoked a constitutional struggle, which for three cen- 
 turies was fought with varying fortunes. The principle at stake 
 was the control of Parliament over all taxation. In 1393 freedom 
 of export was allowed by statute ; but the statutory Uberty might 
 be overridden by the king in Council. Seventy years later (1463) 
 the royal power to prohibit or permit exportation was taken away, 
 and, instead of the sovereign's discretion, a scale of prices was 
 fixed below which trade in com was allowed. More despotic than 
 their immediate predecessors, the Tudor sovereigns reasserted the 
 royal right to grant licences.^ Special circumstances may have 
 justified the claim and its exercise. Agriculturally, the general 
 aim of the Tudors was to encourage tillage in order to counteract 
 the depopulating tendencies of sheep-farming. Commercially, they 
 desired to build up a foreign trade as the chief support of sea power, 
 and English com was one of the commodities which they hoped 
 
 ^E.g. 20 Henry YIIL c. 2 (1633); 1 and 2 P. and M. o. fi (1664). Bee 
 Appendix HL, B. 
 
 R 
 
258 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 to exchange for foreign produce.^ On both grounds they fostered 
 a trade in exported grain. But uncontrolled liberty of sending 
 com out of the country might have raised home prices by depleting 
 home supphes. It may therefore have seemed essential to Tudor 
 statesmen that the royal power of prohibiting exports should be 
 revived in the interest of consumers. The emptiness of the royal 
 treasury drove the Stewarts to seek in this control of the corn- 
 trade an independent source of income, and it was one of the 
 complaints against Charles I. that he had exercised the royal pre- 
 rogative in order to swell his revenue. Ultimately the constitu- 
 tional principle triumphed. From the Bestoration down to 1815 
 freedom to export home-grown com was controlled and regulated 
 by the legislature in accordance with scales of prices current in the 
 home market. At the same time the power of the king in Coimcil 
 to suspend the laws regulating both exports and imports of grain 
 was retained in use and sanctioned by Parliament. 
 
 At the Restoration the fiscal policy of the country towards 
 com assumed a more definite shape. Statutes were passed in 1660, 
 1663, and 1670, which regulated both exports and imports of com. 
 The two sets of regulations cannot henceforward be considered 
 separately. The one was the complement of the other. The Act 
 of 1660* allowed home-grown com to be exported when prices at 
 the port of shipment did not exceed, for wheat, 40s. per quarter ; 
 for rye, peas, and beans, 248. ; for barley and malt, 20s. ; for oats, 
 16s. The same Act levied a duty of 2s. a quarter on imports of 
 foreign wheat, when home prices were at or under 44s. a quarter : 
 above that price, the duty was reduced to 4d. Proportionate 
 duties were imposed on other foreign grains according to their 
 prices in the home market. These scales of duties and prices were 
 revised in the Act of 1663.* In the Acts both of 1660 and 1663 the 
 object of the Government seems to have been revenue, for the 
 scales of duties on foreign imports are remarkably low. In 1670, 
 however, this policy was changed. In this Act " for the Improve- 
 ment of Tillage " * com might be exported, though the home prices 
 rose above the limit fixed in 1663. At the same time prohibitive 
 duties were levied on imports of foreign com. When wheat, for 
 
 1 An Act for the MavrOencmce of the Naoy passed in 1562 (6 Eliz. c. 5), per- 
 mitted the export of com when the price of wheat was at or under lOe. per 
 quarter ; of rye, beans, and peas, 8b. ; of barley, 6a. 8d. See also Appendix 
 
 ni., B. 
 
 » 12 Car. n. c. 4. " 15 Car. H. c. 7. * 22 Car. n. c. 13. 
 
BOUNTY ON EXPORTS OF CORN 259 
 
 instance, stood at under 53s. 4d. a quarter, a duty of 16s. a quarter 
 was imposed on foreign com ; when the home price was between 
 53s. 4d. and 80s., the duty was reduced to Se. ; when prices rose 
 above 80s., the ordinary poundage of 4d. a quarter only was charge- 
 able. On other foreign grains, at proportionate prices, similar 
 duties were levied. 
 
 In the reign of William and Mary ^ an addition was made to the 
 system. When the home price of wheat was at, or under, 48s. a 
 quarter, a bounty of 5s. a quarter was allowed on every quarter of 
 home-grown wheat exported. Similar boimties were allowed on 
 the export of other grains at proportionate prices. In the Parlia- 
 mentary debates on this measure the interests both of consumers 
 and producers were avowedly considered. On the one side, the 
 Act was unquestionably framed for the benefit of producers, to 
 reheve them of accumulated stock, and so to enable them to bear 
 increased pubhc burdens. On the other side, it was expected that 
 the stimulus of the bounty would promote production, bring a 
 larger area of land under the plough, increase the quantity of 
 home-grown grain, and so provide a more constant supply of com 
 at steady prices and a lower average. For the first sixty-five years 
 of the eighteenth century results seemed to justify the argument. 
 But it is difficult to determine how far the low range of prices which 
 prevailed from 1715 to 1765 was due to prosperous seasons, or how 
 far it was the effect of the stimulus to employ improved methods 
 on an increased area of land. In years of scarcity, the direct effect 
 of the bounty was inconsiderable, because not only was that 
 encouragement withdrawn, but the liberty to export any home- 
 grown com was also suspended. In years of abundance, the 
 bounty, by stimulating exportation, may have checked the natural 
 fall of prices. But it was urged that this advantage to producers 
 was a reasonable compensation for the loss they sustained in years 
 of scarcity from the frequent prohibitions of exports ; that prices 
 were steadied ; that no violent fall drove parts of the corn-area 
 out of cultivation ; that the home-supply, on which alone the 
 country could depend, was therefore more abundant than it other- 
 wise would have been ; that, as the bounty was paid without regard 
 to the quality of the exported grain, English consumers benefited 
 by the retention of the superior qualities for home consumption. 
 Possibly consumers may have found that these advantages counter- 
 M W. and M. c. 12. 
 
260 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 balajiced the loss sustained in years of abundance by the inter- 
 ference with natural cheapness, and were a set o£E to the loss 
 of the six million pounds,^ which, between 1697 and 1765, 
 were raised by taxation, and in the shape of bounties paid over to 
 producers. 
 
 The fiscal pohcy on which the Government embarked in 1689 
 practicaUy governed the com trade down to 1815. Scales of regu- 
 lating prices were often revised ; but the principles remained the 
 same. On one side, the import of foreign com was in ordinary 
 years practicaUy prohibited by heavy duties. On the other side, 
 home production was artificially stimulated in order that a larger 
 area might be maintained under com cultivation than was required 
 in average seasons for the maintenance of the population. In the 
 125 years during which this system prevailed, two periods may be 
 distinguished ; the first lasting from 1689 to 1765, the second 
 extending from 1765 to 1815. 
 
 In considering the results of the fiscal policy of the Government 
 during the first of thesie two periods, it must be remeiabered that 
 both sets of laws were in operation at the same time. When prices 
 were below a certain level, foreign imports were practically pro- 
 hibited, exports of home-grown com permitted, and the quantity of 
 production stimulated by bounties. When home prices rose above 
 a certain level, the bounties ceased, exports were prohibited, and 
 imports of foreign grain admitted duty free or at reduced rates. 
 It is, therefore, not easy to decide, whether consumers gained most 
 by the laws which kept com in the country, or lost most by those 
 which kept it out. In the twentieth century, when there is a large 
 additional or alternative supply of grain, produced under different 
 climatic conditions to our own, there could be no question that the 
 loss inflicted by the prohibition of imports would be incomparably 
 the greatest. But the conditions of the corn-markets of the world 
 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so widely different, 
 that the pohcy of the Government may not then have been unreason- 
 able. Additional suppUes were only obtainable from Northern 
 Europe. But the north of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, 
 North-west Germany, and, to a less extent, North-eaat Germany and 
 Poland, were affected by similar climatic conditions to those of 
 . Elngland. Thus in unfavourable seasons the whole corn-area then 
 
 ^ See Appendix in.,E.for the bountieB paid in the years 1697-1766 on exports 
 of grain under the Act of 1 William and ilttry, o. 12. 
 
THEIR FREQUENT SUSPENSION 261 
 
 available sofieied simultaneously from deficient harvests. Through- 
 out the period 1689-1765 the average price of wheat in England is 
 stated to have been less by 4d. a quarter than the average price in 
 Continental markets. Foreign com, therefore, after bearing the 
 cost of transport and insurance, seldom less than 12s. a quarter and 
 often increased by war-risks, could not have reduced English prices, 
 even if no import duties had been levied. Consumers were not shut 
 out from an alternative and cheaper supply, because no other supply 
 waa available except at higher prices than were being paid for home- 
 grown grain. On the other hand, they profited considerably by the 
 results of the fiscal policy pursued in England. In average seasons 
 England grew not only com for her own people, but a surplus for 
 exportation. It was only in adverse seasons that any deficiency was 
 probable. When this was anticipated, the Grovemment had two 
 strings to its bow. The ports were closed against exports, and, if 
 the supply continued inadequate, were opened to imports. It 
 seemed probable, therefore, that consiuners suffered no injury from 
 the heavy duty on imports, or that, if they were injured at all, 
 their loss was infinitesimal. 
 
 During the period 1689-1765, neither the bounties, nor the 
 liberty of exportation, nor the restriction on imports, were continu- 
 ously operative. In nine years ^ the bounty was suspended, or the 
 exportation of home-grown com altogether prohibited. Generally 
 this expedient succeeded ; the unusual quantity of com retained in 
 the country met the deficiency. But in three years ^ out of the 
 nine the further step was taken. In 1741, and both in 1757 and 1758 
 foreign com was admitted duty free. The total amount of wheat 
 imported into the country in those three years was 169,455 quarters. 
 In these exceptional years, war and war-taxes, the restoration of the 
 currency, or the gradual growth of the population may have specially 
 affected English prices, and the bounty may, as its opponents 
 asserted, have assisted their upward tendency. But all these causes 
 in combination were comparatively unimportant. Throughout 
 European markets the dearth or the abundance of grain, together 
 with high or low prices, mainly depended on the weather, which 
 generally affected the whole corn-area in the same way. The last 
 seven years of the seventeenth century, for instance, were long 
 remembered in Scotland as the " seven ill years," and in England 
 
 1 1698, 1699, 1700, 1709, 1710, 1741, 1767, 1758, 1759. 
 ' In Scotland only. 
 
262 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 they were almost equally disastrous. The winters of 1708-9 and 
 1739-40 were two of the three winters ^ which were famous in the 
 eighteenth century for their prolonged severity. Both were followed 
 by deficient harvests. The wet spring, summer, and autumn of 
 1756 produced a scarcity of com, and the great heat of 1757 caused 
 the crops to be too light to make good the previous shortage. 
 These unfavourable seasons were not peculiar to England. They 
 prevailed throughout Northern Europe, and the advance of prices 
 was general. But in France, where the Government discouraged 
 exports of grain and encouraged imports, the distress waa acuter and 
 more lasting than in England, where the opposite fiscal poUcy was 
 adopted. England, in other words, profited in these years of 
 scarcity by the large reserve which the bounty helped to maintain. 
 
 With the exception of the years in which these deficient harvests 
 occurred, the period was generally prosperous for the labouring 
 classes in England. The level of prices was low and steady. As 
 compared with the average price of wheat in the seventeenth 
 century, the first sixty-five years of the eighteenth century show a 
 fall of 16 per cent., and this relative cheapness was accompanied by 
 a rise of the same percentage in the wages of agricultural labour. 
 It seems probable that the reign of George 11. was the nearest 
 approach to the Golden Age of the labouring classes. Necessaries 
 of life were cheap and abundant ; population showed no rapid 
 increase, but the standard of living improved. Complaints of the 
 low prices * were loud. It was said that farmers could not pay their 
 rents and landowners could " scarce support their families." The 
 low range of prices quoted by Eden ^ for the years 1742-1756 is 
 remarkable for a country which was entirely dependent upon home 
 supplies, was a considerable exporter of grain, and in nine out of 
 the fifteen years was engaged in war at home or abroad. 
 
 A succession of prices so low as those shown in the Table 
 on page 263 would naturally have driven a considerable area 
 out of cultivation for com, and an advance of price would 
 have been caused by a diminution of the supply. The practical 
 effect of the bounty seems to have been that this natural 
 result was to some degree counteracted, though throughout the 
 
 ^ The third winter was 1794-6. 
 
 • See The Landlord's Companion, by W. Allen (1736) ; Ootuiderations on 
 tht Present State of Affairs, by Lord Lyttelton (1739). 
 3 History of the Labouring Classes, Appendix, p. Ixxx. 
 
BEFORE AND AFTER 1765 
 
 263 
 
 century a large area of corn-land was being converted to pasture. 
 Thus a surplus was provided which, in years of European scarcity, 
 mitigated the dearth at home. During the whole period from 1715 
 to 1765 the total imports of foreign com did not exceed 300,000 
 quarters, while home-grown com was sent out of the country to the 
 amount of 11 J milUons. The largest amount of wheat exported in 
 any single year was reached in 1750, when the quantity was 950,483 
 quarters.^ 
 
 January Prices of drain at Mark Lane and Bear Quay. 
 
 Tli*KS. 
 
 Whiai. 
 
 BART.IY. 
 
 OATS. 
 
 
 S. B. 
 
 8. 9. 
 
 s. a. 
 
 1742 
 
 26 to 29 
 
 15 to 20 
 
 12 to 15 
 
 1743 
 
 20 „ 23 
 
 15 „ 20 
 
 13 „ 16 
 
 1744 
 
 19 „ 21 
 
 11 „ 13 
 
 9 „ 12 
 
 1745 
 
 18 „ 20 
 
 12 „ 15 
 
 12 „ 16 
 
 1746 
 
 16 „24 
 
 10 „ 12 
 
 12 „ 14 
 
 1747 
 
 27 „ 30 
 
 8 „12 
 
 6 „ 9 
 
 1748 
 
 26 „ 28 
 
 13 „ 14 
 
 9 „ 12 
 
 1749 
 
 27 „ 32 
 
 17 „ 18 
 
 14 „ 16 
 
 1750 
 
 24 „29 
 
 14 „ 17 
 
 12 „ 14 
 
 1751 
 
 24 „ 27 
 
 14 „ 17 
 
 13 „ 14 
 
 1752 
 
 oo ,j o4 
 
 17 „ 19 
 
 12/6,, 16 
 
 1753 
 
 29 „ 33 
 
 17 „ 18 
 
 10/6,, 12 
 
 1754 
 
 27 „ 33 
 
 17 „ 19 
 
 12/6,, 13 
 
 1755 
 
 24 „26 
 
 12 „ 14 
 
 10 „ 13 
 
 1766 
 
 22 „ 26 
 
 14 „ 15 
 
 12 „ 13/6 
 
 During the second period (1765-1815) the Grovemment maintained 
 the same fiscal policy of regulating both exports and imports, and 
 of encouraging exportation by means of bounties within a certain 
 range of prices. But in all other respects the two periods are 
 sharply contrasted. The first period was remarkable for low 
 prices, a large export trade in home-grown com, and the prosperity 
 of the labouring classes ; the second period is equally remarkable 
 for high prices, a growing importation of foreign com, and wide- 
 spread misery among the wage-earning population. When the 
 
 ' See Appendix m., D. 
 
264 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 fiscal system was practically unaltered, to what causes must these 
 difierences be attributed ? 
 
 The average price of wheat during the half centuiy which ended 
 in 1764, was in the next fifty years practically trebled. The tendency 
 is shown in the following decennial averages of the prices of wheat 
 per quarter : 
 
 1765-74 61s. 
 
 1775-84 - - 43s. 
 
 1786-94 - - 47s. 
 
 1795-1804 - - - 76s. 
 
 1806-14 - - - 93s. 
 
 1816-24 - - - - 68s. 
 
 It was now that England ceased to be a corn-exporting country and 
 became a buyer of foreign grain. The year 1766 marks the first 
 stage in this revolution in the English corn-trade. For some few 
 years the balance hovered from side to side, inclining to excess now 
 of exports, now of imports. After 1792 it definitely turned in favour 
 of imports, which from that date increasingly preponderated. 
 During the whole period which witnessed this change, the fiscal 
 policy, though often revised, and notably in 1773 and 1791, remained 
 in principle the same. But from 1766 to 1774, and again from 1792 
 to 1814, the liberty to export com, as well as the bounty which 
 encouraged exportation, was almost continuously suspended. 
 Imports of foreign com were also repeatedly admitted at reduced 
 rates or duty free. This was the case in 1765, 1766-8, 1772-3, in 
 1783, in 1790, and practically from the commencement of the French 
 war (1793) till its final close. Besides the frequent revisions and 
 suspensions of the regulating prices, great efforts were made to 
 increase home and foreign suppUes. Thus in 1772 the inland trade 
 was relieved &om many restrictions by the repeal of the statutory 
 penalties against " badgers, forestallers, engrossers, and regrators." 
 To increase the area under com, numerous enclosure Acts ^ were 
 passed. To eke out the home produce, economies were enforced 
 by Parliament. Thus the hair-powder tax was imposed in 1796, 
 and the use of wheat and other grain in the making of starch or in 
 distilleries was repeatedly prohibited.* Still more exceptional 
 efiforts were made to secure a supply of foreign com. Government 
 agents were employed to buy com in the Baltic, as it was feared 
 
 ^ 1,593 Acts were passed between 1795 and 1812 inclusive. 
 *E.g. in 1795-6, 1800, 1801. 1809-12. 
 
THE HIGH PRICES OF 1765-1815 265 
 
 that private merchants would hesitate to pay the high prices which 
 were demanded abroad. Com in neutral ships, destined for foreign 
 ports, was seized and carried to England. Bounties on imports of 
 grain which had been offered in 1773 at the rate of 4s. a quarter by 
 the City of London, were offered by the Government at the rate of 
 from 16s. to 20s. a quarter in 1795-6 and again in 1800 and the years 
 that followed. Substitutes for ordinary com, such as rice and maize, 
 were eagerly bought : the cultivation of the potato was greatly 
 increased. But in spite of all these efforts to provide food, the 
 scarcity continued until there seemed to be a real prospect of a 
 failure in the supply of provisions. In 1812 the country stood on 
 the very verge of famine. Shut out from Continental ports, at war 
 not only with Napoleon but with America, England was reduced to 
 acute and extreme distress. Conditions were at their worst. In 
 August of that year the average price of wheat at Mark Lane was 
 155s. per quarter ; prices of other grains, as weU as of meat, rose in 
 proportion ; at the end of October the potato crop was found to have 
 failed by one-fourth. The year was one of the most severe suffering. 
 But 1813 brought relief. An abundant harvest lowered prices with 
 extraordinary rapidity. In December wheat had fallen to 73s. 6d. 
 In 1814 ^ the fiscal system which had lasted, though with many 
 interruptions, since 1689, was finally abolished. After June of that 
 year com, grain, meal, and flour were allowed to be exported without 
 payment of duty and without receiving any bounty. Henceforward 
 the Com Laws only survived in the one-sided form of restrictions on 
 imports. 
 
 The high prices which prevailed in the second period (1765-1815) 
 have been explained in various ways. They have been attributed 
 to the improper practices of corn-dealers, the growth of population, 
 the consoUdation of holdings and diminution of open-field farming, 
 the depreciation of the currency, imfavourable seasons, the war, or 
 the fiscal system. Each of these causes may have contributed to 
 the upward tendency of prices. But the most effective reasons 
 for the deamess of com were the weather and the war. These two 
 causes alone would sufficiently explain the continued scarcity. 
 Even imder a system of absolute free trade, they would produce the 
 same results to-day, if England still drew her supplementary supplies 
 of com from the same limited area at home and abroad. 
 
 The growth of the population is undoubtedly an important factor 
 ' 64 Geo. UI. c. 09. 
 
266 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 in the problem. Between 1689 and 1815 the increase was consider- 
 able, though, like most of the political arithmetic which relates to 
 the eighteenth century, the actual numbers are largely a matter of 
 guess-work. In 1696 Gregory King estimated the population of 
 England and Wales at 5,500,000. At the accession of (Jeorge IQ. 
 (1760), the numbers were supposed to have risen to between six and 
 seven millions.^ As the reign advanced, the rate of increase was 
 accelerated. The first official census was taken ia 1801. In that 
 year the population of England and Wales is stated to be 8,872,980. 
 In 1811 it had grown to 10,150,615. On these figures the population 
 had doubled itself in 125 years, and, even if no allowance is made for 
 an improved standard of Uving, it is probable that England during 
 the same period had doubled her production of food. The increased 
 supply required to feed double the numbers was certainly not ob- 
 tained from abroad, for food imports, even at their highest, continued 
 to be infinitesimal in amount.' It was therefore produced at home. 
 In the case of wheat it would be difficult to prove the same rate 
 of progress. In abundant seasons the home supply would probably 
 have continued to feed the country, without risk of inadequacy or 
 panic-stricken competition, and therefore cheaply. But in ordinary 
 seasons the margin was at best a small one, and in unfavourable 
 weather a deficit was certain. It has been disputed whether six 
 bushels or eight bushels of wheat should be allowed as the average 
 quantity yearly consumed by each person. At the higher rate of 
 consumption, and assuming that wheat was the food of the whole 
 population, seven million quarters of wheat would be required in 
 1760, and ten million quarters in 1811. Arthur Young, in 1771, 
 calculated that 2,795,808 acres were then under cultivation for 
 wheat in England and Wales, and that the average produce per acre 
 was three quarters, giving a total yield of 8,387,424 quarters. In 
 1808, Comber* estimated the wheat area of England and Wales at 
 
 1 Smith (Tracts on the Com Trade) estimates the population of England and 
 Wales in 1766 at six millions, of whom 3,760,000 consumed wheat, the remain- 
 ing 2,250,000 consuming rye, barley, or oats. Finlaison, of the KTational Debt 
 Office (M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Envpvre, vol. i. 399), 
 calculated the numbers in 1760 at 6,479,730. Porter (Progress of the Nation, 
 p. 146) gives the population in 1760-69 as 6,850,000. Nicholls (Hist, of the 
 English Poor Law, ed. 1904, vol. ii. p. 64) estimates it in 1760 as 7,000,000. 
 
 > From 1801 to 1810 the average amount of wheat annually imported was 
 600,946 quarters, or about 2 pec^ per head ; from 1811 to 1820 it was only 
 468,678 quarters. 
 
 ' An Inguiry into the State of National Srtbsistenee, Appendix xxv. 
 
tINPROSPEROUS SEASONS 267 
 
 3,160,000 acres, and the produce, adopting Young's average rate, 
 would be 9,480,000 quarters. In other words, while the population 
 had increased by three millions, the wheat production had increased 
 by only one million quarters. This calculation, however, allows 
 nothing for the increased productiveness of the soil under improved 
 management, does not take into account the surplus wheat obtain- 
 able from Scotland and Ireland, and is at first sight contradicted by 
 the large acreage which enclosures had added to the cultivated area. 
 Evidence indeed exists to prove that the first effect of enclosures 
 of open-field farms was often to diminish the com area. Against 
 this decrease must be set the quantity of land which, under the spur 
 of the high prices of the Napoleonic war, were brought under the 
 plough and tilled for com. Comber's calculation of the wheat area 
 appears to be extremely low ; but it is impossible to prove the 
 suspected under-estimate. It is probably safe to say that, while in 
 an average season enough wheat was grown in England and Wales 
 to feed ten million people, the surplus was so small as to expose the 
 country to panic prices whenever a deficiency in the normal yield 
 was anticipated. 
 
 This conclusion is confirmed by a closer examination of the yield 
 of com harvests during the period. The seasons from 1765 to 1815 
 were far less favourable than those from 1715 to 1764 ; the former 
 were as imiformly prosperous as the latter were uniformly adverse. 
 Both in this coimtry, and throughout Europe, the harvests of 
 1765-67, 1770-74, fell much below the average. Prices rose high. 
 Exports dwindled, and imports increased in volimie.^ In the 
 decennial period 1765-1774, for the first time in the history of 
 English farming, imports of foreign wheat exceeded the home- 
 grown exports. Since that period they have never lost their pre- 
 ponderance. For the next eighteen years (1775-1792) the seasons 
 were irregular. Thus the harvest of 1779 was long famous for its 
 productiveness. On the other hand, the years 1782-3-4 were most 
 unfavourable, the winters unusually severe, and the spring and 
 summer cold and ungenial. There ws/S a general scarcity of food. 
 In 1782 the imports of wheat (584,183 quarters) were the largest 
 yet known, and the figure was only once (1796 : 879,200 quarters) 
 
 ' 1766-74, Exports (in round numbers) 610,000 quarters ; imports, 1,341,000, 
 1776-84, exports, 1,366,100 ; imports, 1,972,000. 1785-94, exports, 1,306,386 ; 
 imports, 2,016,000. 1796-1804, exports, 636,000 ; imports, 6,686,000. 1806- 
 14, exports, 693,000 (nine years only, the records of 1813 having been 
 destroyed) ; imports, 6,782,000. 
 
268 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 exceeded in the eighteenth century. Writing ia August, 1786, 
 Arthur Young says : " Last winter, hay, straw, and fodder of all 
 kinds were scarcer and dearer than ever known in this Kingdom. 
 Severe frosts destroyed the turnips, and cattle of all kinds, and sheep 
 suffered dreadfully ; many died, and the rest were in ill plight to 
 fatten early in this summer." The crops of 1789 again were 
 deficient. Exports were prohibited, and free imports permitted. 
 But in France the scarcity almost amounted to famine. The 
 Government spent large sums in the purchase of wheat, and Con- 
 tinental prices ruled considerably above those of England. Against 
 the deficient harvests of 1790 and 1792 may be set the season of 
 1791, which was so favourable that, for the last time in the history of 
 the corn-trade,* the exports of the following year exceeded the 
 imports. 
 
 It will be seen that the yield of fourteen of the harvests during 
 the twenty-eight years 1765-92 fell so far below the average as to 
 create a scarcity ; that several others were defective ; and that 
 only two (1779 and 1791) were really abundant. Yet, during the 
 whole period, the total excess of imports of foreign wheat over the 
 exports of home-grown produce only amounted to 1,661,000 quarters, 
 or an average of little more than 59,000 quarters a year. It may, 
 therefore, be reasonably assumed that, if England had enjoyed 
 seasons as imiformly favourable as those of 1715-64, she would have 
 been able to feed her growing population at low prices and yet to 
 remain a grain-exporting country. The fact is a striking proof of 
 her agricultural progress. It is more than doubtful whether such 
 an expansion of her powers of production wotdd have been possible 
 if the open-field system of farming had been maintained. 
 
 In February, 1793, war was proclaimed with France. It continued 
 
 with two brief intervals till 1816. As the struggle progressed the 
 
 area of conflict was widened until it embraced America as well as 
 
 Europe, and not only became a naval and military war in which all 
 
 the Powers were engaged, but developed into a commercial blockade 
 
 directed against this country. During the whole period the Com 
 
 Laws were practically inoperative. The progress of the war 
 
 created conditions of supply which alone would suffice to explain 
 
 an unprecedented rise of prices. But the situation was through- 
 
 ' 1792, exports, 300,278 quarters ; imports, 22,417. The statement in the 
 text is not literally true. In 1808 the exports exceeded the imports by 13,116 
 quarters (98,006 to 84,889). But the exportation was to the Peninsula for 
 military purposes and for the supply of our own troops. 
 
A CHRONIC CONDITION OP PANIC 269 
 
 ont aggravated by an unusual recurrence of unproductive 
 seasons. 
 
 The wheat harvests in the twenty-two years 1793-1814 ^ may be 
 thus analysed. Fourteen were deficient ; in seven out of the 
 fourteen, the crops failed to a remarkable extent, namely, in 1795, 
 1799, 1800, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812. Six produced an average yield. 
 Only two, 1796 and 1813, were abundant ; but the latter was long 
 regarded as the best within living memory. Towards the close of the 
 period, the increased extent of the wheat area to some degree com- 
 pensated for the comparative failure of the crops. But the repeated 
 deficiencies created an almost continuous apprehension of real 
 scarcity which was expressed in abnormal prices. To a generation 
 which draws its supplies from sources so remote that climatic con- 
 ditions vary almost infinitely, the panic may seem unintelligible. 
 It was not so in the days of the Napoleonic wars. The quantity 
 available from the United States was scanty, and over the com 
 areas of Europe a similar series of unproductive seasons seems to 
 have prevailed. To this, however, there was one notable exception. 
 The harvests of 1808 and 1809 were remarkably favourable in 
 France and the Netherlands, and, at the very height of the struggle 
 with Napoleon, it was from the French cornfields that England 
 obtained her additional suppUes. 
 
 The deficiency of the home harvests and the consequent fear of 
 scarcity naturally raised prices of com. The upward tendency was 
 in various ways enormously increased by the progress of the war 
 and the commercial blockade which it developed. No doubt the 
 struggle in which the country was engaged quickened the activity 
 and industry of the population, stimulated agricultural improve- 
 ments, sharpened the inventive faculties to economise both in 
 money and in labour. On the other hand, the war raised the rate 
 of interest, added to the burden of taxation, increased the cost of 
 corn-growing, and withdrew into improduotive channels a con- 
 siderable portion of the capital and labour of the country. Besides 
 these ordinary results, the peculiar character which the struggle 
 gradually assumed threatened to deprive England of any alternative 
 supply of foreign grain which could supplement the resources that 
 she derived from her own soil, from Scotland, and from Ireland. 
 Again and again the political situation was reflected in Mark Lane. 
 
 I Tooke's History of Prices, ed. 1867, Appendix vi. " Seasons 1792-1866 " 
 ▼oL vi. pp. 471-83, <uid vol. i pp. 213-376, and voL ii. pp. 1-3. 
 
270 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 Thus, in 1800, it was not merely the prospect or subsequent certainty 
 of an unproductive harvest which raised prices, for the actual 
 deficiency had been greater in 1794-5. It was the further dread of 
 being cut ofi from foreign supplies. It was the hostility of Russia 
 and Denmark, the consequent fear that the Baltic would be closed 
 against our grain-ships, and the almost simultaneous news that 
 Prussia had imposed a heavy duty on all grain exports, which com- 
 bined to send wheat to 130s. a quarter. At a later stage in the 
 struggle, the deficiency in our home supply was less in 1811-12 than 
 it had been in 1794-5 or in 1799-1800. But it was the threat of a 
 complete stoppage of aU foreign suppUes by the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees, which turned the dread of scarcity into a panic-stricken 
 competition and carried the price of wheat in 1812 to 155s. a quarter. 
 Even if the war never actually efEected a commercial blockade, its 
 risks, together with the restrictions on exports enforced by foreign 
 Powers and the hcences for navigation required by the British 
 Government, forced up the rates of freight and insurance to a 
 prodigious height. During the period 1810-12, this increase in 
 the costs of conveyance culminated, and the charges for the trans- 
 port of foreign com rose to as much as 50s. a quarter. Thus, evfin 
 if it was possible to obtain additional supphes from abroad, they 
 could only be brought into the coimtry at an unprecedented expense. 
 
 The history of the Com Laws, thus briefly outlined, confirms the 
 impression that, down to 1815, they exercised little or no influence 
 on prices. If that is so, they were not the cause of the great rise of 
 rents which the last quarter of a century had witnessed. Hitherto 
 the only practical effect of the restrictions on imports had been to 
 prevent com from being brought into the country for the purpose 
 of gaining the bounty on exportation. In ordinary years, no foreign 
 com could have been imported, even duty free, at prices which 
 could reduce, or compete with, home-grown produce. In years 
 of scarcity, the deficiency generally extended over Europe, and 
 foreign suppUes were either not obtainable, or obtainable only at 
 prices at least as high as our own. During the frequent periods of 
 war, these conditions were aggravated by the prodigious cost of 
 transport. Great Britain had in the main fed her own population, 
 and her prices had depended on the seasons. Consumers had not 
 suffered from the Com Laws, because no alternative cheaper supply 
 was available from abroad. 
 
 After 1815 these conditions were to a great extent altered. The 
 
CHANGED CONDITIONS AFTER 1815 271 
 
 bounty on exportation had been abolished. Freedom of export 
 was allowed, and was never suspended, because there was no mai^in 
 of produce which could be retained in the country by prohibiting 
 it from being sent abroad. Population was begimiing to equal 
 production. So long as there had been a surplus of home-grown 
 grain, which could be kept in the country by suspending the licence 
 to export, the Com Laws had steadied prices. Now, in times of 
 scarcity, they only increased the range of fluctuation in rise and 
 fall by excluding alternative supplies. Revenue was not their 
 object, because the duties were so high as to be prohibitory. They 
 were frankly protective, intended to shut out imports, and so 
 maintain the prices of home-grown produce above a permanent 
 level. Even so, the interests of consumers would not necessarily 
 have been sacrificed to those of producers, unless an additional 
 and cheaper supply had been obtainable. That condition was 
 now, ia most years, fulfilled. The charges of transport had fallen 
 to their peace level ; throughout Northern Europe com was once 
 more sown and reaped without fear of the ravages of war, and 
 Continental prices ruled below those of Great Britain : from the 
 New World came an increasing supply, which was not affected by 
 the same climatic conditions as those of the North of Europe. 
 Henceforth external sources existed, from which deficiencies in 
 the yield of home harvests might be supplied without raising prices 
 beyond the addition of the costs of conveyance. If to these costs 
 were added the payment of heavy duties, it might be said that the 
 price of bread was artificially raised to maintain the level of the 
 profits of landowners and farmers. 
 
 Another important change had taken place in the position of 
 the antagonists in the coming struggle over the prices of com. The 
 issue was no longer centred on principles of abstract morality ; 
 it was transferred to the practical region of trade. Our ancestors 
 passed laws to establish just prices ; their successors legislated 
 to secure reasonable profits. The change may have been a change 
 rather of words than of ideas. But it was not without significance. 
 Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the great preponder- 
 ance of the nation had been interested in prices both as consumers 
 and producers of com. Now the proportions were completely 
 altered, and the majority had permanently shifted. The new 
 manufacturing class was rapidly growing ; the mass of open-field 
 farmers had become agricultural labourers, whose real wages rose 
 
272 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 
 
 with the cheapness or fell with the deamess of bread. On the 
 other hand, the interests of producers of com were now represented 
 by a comparatively small and dwindling class of landowners and 
 farmers, who in recent years had enormously raised their own 
 standard of living. Numerically small, but politically powerful, 
 this class was convinced that the war-prices yielded only reasonable 
 profits. The great majority of the population was convinced to 
 tiie contrary. 
 
 Yet it would be unfair to represent that the protective policy of 
 the later Com Laws was entirely maintained by a Parliamentary 
 majority swayed by selfish motives. It was supported, up to a 
 certain point, by many who stood outside the circle of the landed 
 interests, and ranked as disciples of Adam Smith. It never entered 
 into their calculations that Great Britain could ever become depen- 
 dent for its food supply on foreign countries. On the contrary, the 
 view was strongly held that every prosperous nation must in 
 ordinary seasons rely for its means of subsistence on its own resources, 
 and must meet the growth of numbers with a corresponding increase 
 in the supply of food. This doctrine was almost universally 
 accepted. Porter, the author of The. Progress of the Nation,^ was 
 an advanced Free Trader. But he argued that " every country 
 which makes great and rapid progress in population must make 
 equal progress in the production of food." He quotes the example 
 of Great Britain in support of his view. By comparing the growth 
 of population with the increase in the quantity of imported wheat, 
 he shows that improvements in agriculture had, to a remarkable 
 extent, enabled the country to keep pace with its increasing needs. 
 Thus in 1811, when the population of Great Britain was ascertained- 
 to be 11,769,725, only 600,946 were fed by foreign wheat. At the 
 end of the next decade, 1811-20, the population had risen to 
 13,494,217, and the home supply was enough for all but 458,676. 
 At the close of the third decade, 1821-30, the population had 
 grown to 15,465,474 ; yet only 634,992 depended on the foreign 
 supply. In 1841, the numbers had increased to 17,535,826 ; but 
 home-grown wheat fed all but 907,638 persons. In other words, 
 British wheat, in 1811, had fed a population of 11,168,779 ; in 
 1841, enough wheat was produced at home to feed a population of 
 16,628,188. Thus in thirty years British land had increased its pro- 
 
 ' The Progras of the Nation in He varioue eocial and economical rdaiions from 
 the beginning of (he Nineteenth Centmy, by O. B. Porter, ed. 1847, p. 136. 
 
A PROTECTIVE POLICY 273 
 
 ductiveness by 5J million quarters. Porter evidently expected 
 that this proportionate progress would continue. He himself 
 advocated the repeal of the Com Laws ; but there were other Free 
 Traders who hesitated to go this length, for fear that improvements 
 should be discouraged, and that the country should mainly depend 
 for its bread upon foreign wheat. 
 
 Agriculturists also argued, and no doubt conscientiously beheved, 
 that, if com in any quantity were brought into the country from 
 abroad, home-prices would cease to jdeld reasonable profits ; that 
 agricultural land would be forced out of cultivation ; that rents 
 and wages would fall ; that rural employment would diminish ; 
 that the virility of the nation would be unpaired by the influx into 
 towns and the consequent depopulation of country districts. To 
 these arguments Parliament lent a sympathetic ear. The limit 
 of home-prices, at which the importation of grain was allowed at 
 nominal duties, was raised in the case of wheat from 48s. in 1773 
 to 85s. in 1815. Below those limits, duties, so heavy as to be 
 practically prohibitive, were levied on imported com or on its 
 removal from the bonded warehouses for consumption. In 1828 
 the evils of this restrictive legislation, though apparently modified, 
 were really aggravated by the adoption of a sliding scale of duties, 
 which varied with the prices of home-grown grain. The importa- 
 tion of com became a gamble, and foreign importers combined to 
 raise home-prices in order to pay the lower scale of duties. Yet in 
 spite of this experience the graduated system was maintained in 
 the legislation of 1842 and 1845. 
 
 Meanwhile the whole protective poUcy, of which the Com Laws 
 only formed a part, was gradually becoming discredited. In 1815 
 a minority of the Peers had entered a powerful protest against the 
 exclusion of foreign com. In 1820 the merchants presented their 
 famous petition, which was drawn up by Thomas Tooke, the 
 author of the History of Prices. A war of pamphlets raged con- 
 tinuously. In the treatment of colonial produce especially, there 
 were signs of the abandonment of a rigidly protective policy. The 
 principle of colonial preference, already recognised in 1766, had 
 been acted upon in 1791, 1804, and 1815. Com from British 
 possessions was allowed to be imported at a nominal duty at a 
 lower limit of home-prices than that fixed for foreign produce. 
 Ten years later, com from the British possessions of North America 
 was permitted to enter British ports at a constant duty of 5s. 
 
274 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS , 
 
 without reference to home-prices. In 1843 this principle was 
 carried yet further. A special concession was made to Canada. 
 In return for a preference granted to British trade, Canadian com, 
 irrespective of home-prices, was admitted at a nominal duty of Is. 
 Encouraged by these concessions, the agitation against the Com 
 Laws gathered strength. It gradually extended from a demand 
 for the relaxation of the stringent duties to a demand for their 
 total abolition. For a brief period the pressure was reduced by 
 the favourable seasons of 1831-36. In 1835, wheat fell to 39s. 4d., 
 the lowest price at which it had been sold for 54 years. Hopes 
 revived that the improvements in farming had again placed pro- 
 duction on a level with the growth of population. The Com Laws 
 were for the moment forgotten. But the unfavourable cycle of 
 1837-41 again forced the question to the front. From 1839 onwards 
 the Anti-Com-Law League used its growing influence in favour 
 of total repeal. The demand for cheap food grew more and more 
 insistent from the labouring classes. Manufacturers echoed the 
 cry, because cheap food meant a lower cost of production, and 
 because food imports would be paid for by exported manufac- 
 tures. Finally, the disastrous harvest of 1845 and the potato 
 famine compelled the Government to yield. The " rain rained 
 away " the Com Laws. In 1846 the existing duties were modified 
 according to a scale which was to continue in force till February 1, 
 1849. After that date all kinds of foreign com were to be admitted 
 at the nominal fixed duty of Is. a quarter. That nominal duty 
 was finally repealed in 1869. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OP COMMXTNICATION 275 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HIGHWAYS. 
 
 The local progress of farming, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
 had been great ; but its general advance was still hampered by 
 numerous hindrances. In many parts of England the inveterate 
 preference for old-fashioned practices was slowly yielding to experi- 
 ence of the results of more modem methods. Defects in the 
 relations between owners and occupiers were mitigated by the 
 grant of leases, which secured to improving tenants a return for 
 their outlay of money and labour. Obstacles presented by soil 
 and climate, so far as they were capable of remedy, were in pro- 
 cess of removal. Experience had shown that sands might be 
 fertilised, and the acidity of sour land corrected, by the use of 
 the proper dressings, selected with judgment and applied with 
 perseverance ; that considerable tracts of moor, heath, and moss 
 might be brought into profitable cultivation ; that fens and swamps 
 might be drained ; that even the disadvantages of climate might 
 be amehorated by plantations. But there remained a number 
 of hindrances, which originated in the laws and customs of the 
 cotmtry. To this class belonged difficulties of communication. 
 The incidence of tithe on the produce of the land will be treated in 
 a subsequent chapter. 
 
 A generation familiar with railways and good roads can hardly 
 appreciate the obstacle to progress which was created by diffi- 
 culties of transport and communication. Up to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, rivers had exercised the greatest influence on 
 the development of inland trade centres. In few districts, and 
 only in favourable seasons, could heavy goods be conveyed over 
 the unmade roads. The conamand of water carriage was all- 
 important. On straightening, deepening, or widening rivers so as 
 to make them navigable, early legislators from the fifteenth century 
 
276 HiGfiWAYS 
 
 onwards, had mainly concentrated their e£Eort8 to improve internal 
 communications. Not only inland towns, but seaports themselves, 
 often owed their early prosperity to their situation at the mouths 
 of rivers. Bristol, or Hull, or Boston, or Lynn, for instance, 
 collected and distributed produce along the course of the Severn 
 and the Wye, or the Trent and the Idle, or the Ouse, the Welland, 
 and the Witham. Even London derived some of its pre-eminence 
 from the produce which was carried over the Thames and its 
 tributaries. To Liverpool the closing of the port of Chester by 
 the sands which choked the Dee, and the opening up of the interior 
 by making navigable the upper waters of the Mersey (1694), the 
 L:weU and the Weaver (1720), proved the real starting-point of its 
 trade. By means of these 'water-highways inland towns became 
 seaports. They were the centres for collecting and distributing 
 produce over the interior of the country. Jleets of trows, " bil- 
 landers," floats, lighters, and barges were engaged in the trade. 
 On the Severn, for instance, which was navigable as far as Welsh- 
 pool, 376 vessels were employed in 1756. The famous Stourbridge 
 Fair was supphed with heavy goods by the Ouse, which enabled 
 boats, each carrying 40 tons of freight, to load and unload at 
 Cambridge. York was accessible to vessels of from 60 to 80 tons, 
 and claimed rights of wreckage as a seaport. Exeter and Taunton 
 carried on a home and foreign trade by means of the Exe and 
 the Parret. Coal reached Hereford by the Wye. Coventry com- 
 municated with the sea by means of the Warwickshire Avon. 
 From Bawtry, on the Yorkshire Idle, were distributed the lead of 
 Derbyshire, the edged tools of Sheffield, the iron goods of Hallam- 
 shire, as well as the foreign goods which entered the country at 
 Hull. Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire shipped their barley 
 and malt from Ware on the Lea. Gloucestershire cheesemakers 
 sent their cheese to London down the Thames from Lechlade. 
 Burslem wares were carried in pot-waggons or on pack-horses to 
 Bridgnorth on the Severn. 
 
 From utilising the natural waterways of the country it seemed 
 but a short step to supplementing them as arteries of trade by 
 the construction of canals. Pioneers in the early stages of this 
 movement were Sir Kichard Weston, who in the reign of Charles I. 
 canalised the Wey, and Sir William Sandys, of Ombersley in 
 Worcestershire, who in 1661 obtained extensive powers to cut 
 new channels, and build locks on the Wye and the Lugg. More 
 
NAVIGABLE RIVERS AND CANALS 277 
 
 extensive plans were floating in the minds of Francis Mathew*- 
 and Andrew Yarranton.* Mathew in 1655 had laid before Cromwell 
 a scheme for connecting London with Bristol, by the construction 
 of a canal to join the Thames and the Avon. No notice seems to 
 have been taken of the plan. Nor was his project more successful 
 fifteen years later. " Many Lords and Gentlemen," says Yarranton, 
 " were ingaged in it. . . . But some fooUsh Discourse at Coffee- 
 houses laid asleep that design as being a thing impossible and 
 impracticable." Yarranton himself proposed to make Banbury a 
 great distributing centre by connecting it with the Severn and the 
 Thames. At an estimated cost of £10,000, he planned to make 
 the CherweU navigable from Oxford to Banbury, and to cut a new 
 channel from the latter place to Shipton-on-the-Stour, whence 
 goods might be carried by the Avon into the Severn below Tewkes- 
 bury. Both writers insist on the extreme isolation of inland 
 districts, the need of supplying food to manufacturing centres, 
 the prohibitive cost of conveying heavy goods by land, and the 
 impassable nature of the roads for wheeled traffic. 
 
 In canal construction England lagged far behind foreign countries, 
 though useful work continued to be done in making existing rivers 
 navigable. Thus the clothiers of Leeds and Wakefield found new 
 and cheaper markets when communication with HuU by the Aire 
 and the Calder was opened up in 1699 ; Preston gained its oppor- 
 tunity for manufacturing development when the Douglas (1720) 
 carried Wigan coal to the Ribble ; the connection of Sheffield with 
 the Humber by means of the Don (1732) gave a fresh impulse to the 
 cutlery trade. But rivers were unsatisfactory as carriers of goods. 
 Subject to flood or drought, constantly Uable to become choked, 
 tortuous in their course, they were also limited in their range and 
 left large districts untouched. If waterways were to be made 
 efficient means of carriage, they must be permanently supphed 
 with water, subject neither to deficiency nor excess, capable of 
 being carried over or through natural obstacles in any direction 
 required. 
 
 In 1755 the Sankey Brook Canal brought the St. Helens coal- 
 fields into direct communication with Liverpool by means of a 
 
 •■ The Opening of Rwera for Navigation, etc., by Francis Mathew, 1666. 
 A Mediterranean Passage by Water from London to Bristol, etc., by Francis 
 Mathew, 1670. 
 
 ■ England's Improvement by Sea and Land, by Andrew Yarranton Qeni. 1677. 
 
278 HIGHWAYS 
 
 new channel, fed with a continuous supply of water, and provided 
 with a system of locks which overcame the difficulties of the descent 
 into the valley of the Mersey. This channel was the first true 
 canal, as distinguished from straightening the courses of rivers. 
 Before the work was completed, the Duke of Bridgwater obtained 
 the sanctioil of the legislature (1759) for the famous canal which 
 bears his name. Brindley's triumph was the real starting-point of 
 the movement. He was the engineer of numerous similar works. 
 The Mersey and Trent Canal, for example, joined Liverpool and 
 Hull, and thus united the ports of the East and the West. Branches 
 were thrown out, which gradually linked together Liverpool, 
 London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Hull by water. The develop- 
 ment of inland navigation which Brindley had begim was continued 
 by Telford and others. The new means of transport powerfully 
 influenced the progress of the industrial revolution. Between 1790 
 and 1794 alone, 81 Canal Acts were obtained, and a canal mania 
 was started, which was only paralleled by the railway mania of 
 the last century. By 1834 England had been covered with a net- 
 work of more than 4000 miles of canals and navigable rivers. 
 
 To some extent the surface of the roads was saved by the sub- 
 stitution of water-carriage for the conveyance of heavy goods. 
 But the development of canal traffic did not always improve 
 internal communications. The increased carriage of heavy goods, 
 such as coal, iron, timber, lime, stone, salt, and com, to and from 
 the wharves, destroyed the roads in the neighbourhood. To some 
 extent this extraordinary traffic was carried on railways, laid down 
 by the canal companies, as feeders to their trade.^ But the range 
 was limited. It was plain that, if full advantage was to be taken 
 of the new means of inland navigation, roads must be scientifically 
 constructed to bear the increased traffic. In McAdam and Telford 
 were found the exponents of this necessary science. The progress 
 of enclosures also favoured road-improvement. So long as land 
 lay unenclosed, travellers were allowed to deviate from the track 
 to avoid the ruts worn by their predecessors. Thomas Mace 
 (1675) * describes how land was " spoiled and trampled down in 
 aU wide roads where coaches and carts take liberty to pick and 
 
 ^ See chapter xvii. pp. 300-3. 
 
 * Profit, Oonvenienoy, and Pleamre, to the Whole Nation, Being a Short 
 Raiiondl Diaeourae . . . concerning the Highways of England, by Thomas 
 Mace (1676). 
 
ROMAN ROADS 279 
 
 chnse for their best advantages." A century later, a Reporter 
 
 contrasts the state of a district near Norwich in the last decade of 
 
 the eighteenth centniy with its condition before 1760 : " Thirty 
 
 years ago," he says, "it was an extensive heath without either 
 
 tree or shrub, only a sheep-walk to another farm. Such a number 
 
 of carriages crossed it, that they would sometimes be a mile abreast 
 
 of each other in search of the best track. Now there is an excellent 
 
 turnpike road, enclosed on each side with a good quickset hedge, 
 
 and the whole laid out in enclosures and cultivated in the Norfolk 
 
 system in superior style." Instead of these common tracks, with 
 
 their wide margins of deviation, enclosure Acts substituted defined 
 
 and constructed roads. Not only was science needed for making 
 
 new highways, but the existing machinery for maintaining those 
 
 already in existence had broken down under the stress of modem 
 
 needs. 
 
 ^Throughout the Middle Ages the great Roman roads were the main 
 
 thoroughfares. Watling Street ran from Kent to Chester and York, 
 
 branching northwards to Carlisle and Newcastle ; the Fosse Way 
 
 crossed England from Bath to Lincoln ; Ermine Street led from 
 
 London to Lincoln and thence to Doncaster and York ; Icknield 
 
 Street, more difficult to trace, swept inland from Norwich, passed 
 
 through Dunstable, and ultimately reached Southampton. For 
 
 centuries they required and received little repair owing to the 
 
 BoUdity of their construction. A firm foundation of beaten earth 
 
 was secured. On this were laid, first, large stones, often embedded 
 
 in mortar ; then a layer of small stones mixed with mortar ; above 
 
 these two layers, hme mixed with chalk and pounded brick, or with 
 
 gravel, sand, and clay ; and finally the paved surface. 
 
 1^ Planned and built by the State, these Roman highways offered 
 
 a striking contrast to the subsequent roads, which were laid out in 
 
 haphazard fashion as need arose. The art of road-makjng was lost, 
 
 or the cost beyond the reach of local effort. Unmetalled tracks 
 
 crept along the edges of streams, which often afforded a better 
 
 bottom than the ways themselves, or sought sound foothold for 
 
 men and beasts across unenclosed land, or boldly kept on high ground 
 
 to escape the bogs and quagmires. Gradually footways, horseways, 
 
 and cartways ^ were levelled by traffic across the plains or hollowed 
 
 ^ The Romans recognised the SEune distinctionB. The iter, actus, and via 
 were the EngliRh footpath, bridle-way, and carriage road. Both in Roman and 
 in English law the greater included the leas, so that the via was open, not only 
 to yehiclee, but to foot-passengers and animalB, 
 
280 HIGHWAYS 
 
 through the hills. Besides the highways between town and town, 
 each manor had its by-roads, leading from the village to the open 
 fields, the commons, the miU, or the church. The ordinary principle 
 which governed the repair of thoroughfares was that they should 
 be maintained by those who had the use of them. The duty of 
 maintaining communication between market towns rested on the 
 inhaMtants of the parishes through which the roads passed ; within 
 the limits of chartered towns it fell on the townsmen, on whom rates 
 or tolls were sometimes levied. Local by-roads within the boim- 
 daries of manors were repaired by the manorial tenantry as one of 
 the conditions of their tenure, and they were bound to provide the 
 necessary implements and labour. These obligations were respec- 
 tively enforced by county or municipal authorities or manorial 
 courts. But road repair did not entirely depend on the performance 
 of legal liabilities. It was also enjoined as a religious duty. Travel- 
 lers were classed with the sick and poor as objects of Christian charity. 
 Indulgences were granted to offenders who gave their money or 
 their labour for the construction or repair of roads and bridges. 
 For the same object pious bequests were encouraged. Gifts of this 
 kind occur as late as the sixteenth century, and in the reign of 
 Edward VI. one of the enquiries made at the Visitations of Bishops 
 was whether these bequests were administered according to the 
 intentions of the donors. 
 
 For a short period during the reign of Edward I., road improve- 
 ment had received some attention from Government. When new 
 ports, like those of Sandwich and Hull, were constructed, care was 
 taken to provide good approaches by land. An attempt was also 
 made to safeguard the lives and property of travellers on the king's 
 highway. Adjoining landowners were compelled by statute to 
 clear all roads between market towns from trees and underwood to a 
 space of 200 feet on either side. The object was not the preservation 
 of the roads by the admission of light and air, but the destruction 
 of the lurking places of robbers. If any crime of violence was 
 committed on a highway not properly cleared, the adjoining owner 
 was held responsible. But the energies of Edward's successors 
 were absorbed in other directions than the maintenance of rural 
 roads. As the fourteenth century advanced, the general burden of 
 taxation and the scarcity of labour increased the growing neglect 
 of public highways. Agricultural changes told in the same direction. 
 So long as lay and ecclesiastical nobles, in order to consume the 
 
ROADS IN TUDOR TIMES 281 
 
 prodace of their estates, had travelled from manor to manor with 
 their retinues, household furniture, and utensils, they had been 
 interested in the means of transit. Their visits ceased when their 
 lands were let on lease. At the same time the decay of the manorial 
 organisation f aciUtated the evasion by the tenants of duties which 
 had ceaaed to be personally valuable to their lords. Roads, made at 
 wiU, were repaired, or not, at pleasure ; everybody's business was 
 nobody's business ; the parochial liability, Uke the manorial obliga- 
 tion, was rarely and unsystematically enforced. Highways fell 
 deeper into decay, and their neglect was increased by the cessa- 
 tion of voluntary efforts, when services which mediaeval piety 
 recognised as religious duties came to be regarded only as civil 
 burdens. 
 
 The condition of the roads across the Weald of Kent, at the open- 
 ing of the Tudor period, was probably no worse than that of highways 
 in other districts. Tet they are described as " right deep and 
 noyous," only to be used at " great pains, peril and jeopardy." ^ 
 The isolation of rural districts can hardly be pictured by the present 
 generation. It restricted the agricultural use of the land, because 
 the interchange of its products was difficult, and each district was 
 compelled to grow its own com. At the same time, it was recognised 
 that, in the interests of expanding trade, the provision of better 
 means of transit was necessary. The first general Act of Parliament 
 applied to bridges {md their approaches.^ Passed in 1530, the statute 
 placed the county on the same footing with regard to bridges as 
 that in which the parish already stood to highways. It directed 
 justices of the peace to enquiire into the conditions of bridges in 
 their districts, to ascertain what persons were liable for their main- 
 tenance, or to levy a rate on the inhabitants for their repair and that 
 of their approaches for 300 feet on either side. In 1555' another 
 general Act was passed, dealing with the roads from market town 
 to market town, which it describes as " verie noysome and tedious 
 to travell in and dangerous to all Passengers and Carriages." It 
 applied to the discharge of parochial liabihties the same methods by 
 which manorial tenants had met their local obligations. Each 
 parish was to elect two " honest persons " of the parish as " survey- 
 ors and orderers," for the repair of the roads within its boundaries 
 
 1 14 and 16 Hen. VUL c. 6, Sections 1, 3. 
 
 « 22 Hen. VHI. c. 6. 
 
 > 2 and 3 Philip and Maiy, u. 8. 
 
282 HIGHWAYS 
 
 by compulsory labour. Four days of eight hours eaoh^ were 
 appointed for the work, the parishioners providing carts, teams, 
 implements, and labour, according to their means. Like other 
 Tudor legislation, the Act failed in its administration. Though 
 neglect to discharge the Uabihty was punishable by fines, little 
 efiect was produced. 
 
 After the Restoration further efforts were made to improve 
 facilities of communication. Stage, or long, waggons had begun 
 in 1564 to ply between the metropolis and the principal towns in the 
 provinces ; private carriages were increasing ; about 1645 stage- 
 coaches were established. Travelling on wheels was recommended 
 for its " admirable commodiousness," and many of those who thus 
 traversed the roads to London were " persons of quality " who could 
 make their influence felt. Some means, in addition to statute 
 labour, was required to maintain the roads in repair for the increasing 
 traffic. During the first ten years of the reign of Charles 11. it 
 seemed probable that this supplement would be provided by the 
 development of highway rates, which had been introduced in 1656. 
 Eventually a new auxihary to statute labour was devised, which 
 arrested the growth of rates, and prolonged the life of the old 
 system by a century and a half. Li 1663 the first Turnpike Trust * 
 was established on the Great North Boad by the erection of toll- 
 bars at Wadesmill, Caxton, and Stilton, and by the exaction of toll 
 from those who used the highway. This portion of one of the 
 principal roads in the country is described in the Act as " ruinous 
 and almost impassable." The inhabitants of the adjoining parishes 
 were too poor to put or keep the highway in repair, and though the 
 Act did not relieve them from their liability, the toUs raised a fund 
 towards the maintenance of the road. Other turnpike trusts were 
 established on the same principle. Their creation was unpopular. 
 Biots broke out, like those subsequently associated with the name of 
 Rebecca in Wales ; toll-bars were frequently pulled down and 
 burned ; and the opposition was only checked by an Act passed in- 
 the reign of George n. (1728) which made their destruction a felony. 
 Turnpike Trusts multiplied rapidly, till in 1760 it was true to say that 
 
 " no cit, nor doivn. 
 Can gratis see the country or the town." 
 
 » In 1862, by 6 Eliz. c. 13, the " statute labour," as it was called, was in- 
 creased from 4 to 6 days. 
 « 16 Car. n. c. 1. 
 
THE PERILS OP TRAVELLING 283 
 
 TraveBing still continued to be a peril. The number of patents 
 that were taken out to prevent coaches from overturning is some 
 evidence of the risk. Nor were the inventions always effective. 
 They did not prevent George 11. and his queen from being upset in 
 1730 near Parsons Green on their way into London. In October, 1736, 
 the queen was advised to leave Kensington Palace for St James's, 
 because the road was so " infamously bad " as to separate her from 
 her Ministers by " an impassable gulf of mud." If travelling was so 
 difficult for royal personages over roads in the neighbourhood of 
 London, the perils of penetrating rural districts may be imagined. 
 In the winter months carriage traffic was suspended . Only horsemen 
 could make their way. Judges and lawyers rode the circuits, 
 chasing John Doe and Richard Roe from assize town to assize town 
 on horseback. Few Quarter Sessions passed without some district 
 being " presented " for non-repair of roads, and heavy were the 
 fines inflicted by bruised and shaken judges, who, thinking that the 
 majesty of the law was ill-supported by top-boots, endeavoured to 
 reach their destination in carriages. 
 
 Even after Turnpike Trusts were generally established, travelling 
 stOl continued to be neither swift, nor easy, nor safe. Guide-posts 
 were almost unknown, and the way was frequently lost. In the 
 reign of Charles 11., the stage had taken two days to reach Oxford 
 from London, and the journey to Ezeter occupied four days. A 
 century later, the one stage-coach, which phed once a month 
 between Edinburgh and London, accomplished the journey in from 
 twelve to fourteen days. Family coaches, lumbering and jolting 
 over the uneven roads, for steel springs were not applied to carriages 
 before the middle of the eighteenth century, made twenty miles a 
 day. They set out provisioned and armed as if for a siege. When 
 Sir Francis Headpiece travelled to London, he carried with him in 
 his coach " the fanuly basket-hilt-sword, the Turkish scimetar, the 
 old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a great horn of powder." ^ 
 Such precautions were not always effectual against a well-mounted 
 highwayman, expert in the use of handier weapons ; and the slow 
 pace at which vehicles travelled, unless they were defended with 
 determination, made them easy victims. 
 
 Off the frequented lines of communication, and often even on 
 these, the condition of the eighteenth century roads, as has been 
 
 ' Vonbrngh's Jmumey to London, produced on the stage by Cibber, in 1728, 
 nnder the title of the Provoked Husband. 
 
284 HIGHWAYS 
 
 shown in a previous chapter, rendered travelling in the winter months 
 difficult, and sometimes, except for horsemen, impossible. But after 
 1760 a determined efiEort was made at improvement. Here and there 
 some local genius, like " Blind Jack " Metcalf of Knaresborough, 
 had already anticipated the methods of Telford and McAdam. 
 In other parts of England, the turnpike trusts were placing portions 
 of the highways in better repair. But the districts for which they 
 were formed were often too small to be useful. Thus the main road 
 from Shrewsbury to Bangor (85 miles) was in the care of six trusts, 
 most of them in debt, all too poor to pay for skilled labour, and each 
 too jealous of the others to co-operate. The multiplication of these 
 turnpike trusts, though it often defeated its own object, affords 
 strong evidence of the ertent to which pubUc attention had been 
 called to the need for improved facilities of communication. 
 Between 1760 and 1774 no less than 452 Turnpike Acts were passed, 
 and in the sixteen years from 1785 to 1800 this number was increased 
 by 643. Two General Highway Acts were passed in 1773 ^ which 
 consolidated the previous legislation on the subject of parochi^.! Ua- 
 biUty for road repair, transferred the appointment of surveyors to the 
 justices of the peace out of lists of names submitted by each parish, 
 allowed the compulsory statute labour for six days to be commuted 
 by money payments, and authorised the levy of a rate, not exceeding 
 6d. in the pound, for the provision of road materials. In 1784 
 Palmer organised the service of mail-coaches. But letters were often 
 stiU left at inns on main thoroughfares, where they remained in the 
 bar till the ink had faded and the wrapper had turned the colour 
 of saffron. The arrival of the pedlar was still eagerly expected in 
 country villages, where he did not always appear as the philosophical 
 enthusiast of the poet's licence. Rather he was the milliner of rural 
 beauties, the arbiter of fashion to village bucks, the newsagent of 
 the alehouse politician, the retailer of the most recent gossip, the 
 vendor of smuggled tea, the purveyor of the latest amorous ditty. 
 He was typical of the times when villages were isolated, self-sufficing, 
 dependent on his summer foid winter circuits for their knowledge of 
 the world beyond the parish boundaries. 
 
 Both Young and Marshall note the improvement which was made 
 
 during the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the roads of 
 
 certain districts. Yet their writings, as well as the reports to the 
 
 Board of Agriculture (1793-1815), afford abundant evidence that else- 
 
 1 13 Oeo. m. cc. 78 and 84. 
 
SLOW PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT 285 
 
 where much remained to be done. For the slow progress made there 
 were many reasons. Country gentlemen used the same arguments 
 against new roads which were afterwards employed against railways. 
 " Merry England " would be merry no longer if her highways ceased 
 to be miry. They dreaded the disturbance of their game, feared the 
 intrusion of town manners, resented the sacrifice of their interests 
 to those of wealthy traders. As magistrates they were reluctant 
 to enforce the law of road-repair against their own tenants. Statute 
 labour was deservedly unpopular. Surveyors, forced into oflSce 
 against their will, only called upon their neighbours to fulfil their 
 liabilities as a last resource, and at seasons when agricultural work 
 was slack. Urban and rural interests were opposed. Market 
 towns might demand metalled roads for the transport of their 
 merchandise ; but self-sufficing villages were content with the drift- 
 ways which were sufficient to enable them to house their crops, and 
 to drag their flour from the mill through the same ruts which their 
 ancestors had worn. Even when a parish was active in road-repair, 
 its energies were generally misdirected. Roads were unguarded at 
 the sides. Drainage was often provided by cutting open grips across 
 their surface. If any convexity was attempted, it was so exaggerated 
 as to be dangerous ; the sides sloped like the roof of a house. Hence 
 the whole traffic fell on the centre, which soon wore into ruts. Many 
 roads were undrainable, because the continual scraping of mud from 
 the surface had sunk them below the level of the adjoining land. 
 Hence they were always wet, and, from the rapid decay of material, 
 expensive to maintain. Where a parish was apathetic, the least 
 possible mending was done in the worst possible way. A faggot, or a 
 bimdle of broom or heather, powdered with gravel, served to stop 
 a bad hole ; if beyond repair by such means, mud, scraped from the 
 sides of the roads and ditches, was thrown on the centre of the road, 
 and into this bed was shot a cartload of large unbroken stones. Not 
 infrequently the road material, raised and carted at the parish 
 expense, missed its destination, and made good, not the road, but 
 the gateways or the yard of some neighbouring farmer. 
 
 The system of road maintenance was proving inadequate for 
 modem requirements. Responsibihty ceased at the parish boun- 
 daries, and no uniformity was possible. The statute labour was 
 everywhere enforced with difficulty. It was also exhausted at one 
 particular season, and nothing more was done till the period recurred. 
 It was a system of occasional outlay without continuous repair. 
 
286 HIGHWAYS 
 
 Surveyors were not appointed for their skill, but were compelled to 
 serve against their will. The experience which they gained in their 
 twelve months' service was wasted by their retirement at the end of 
 the year when their successors were appointed. Already in France, 
 Pierre de Tr^saguet (1716-74) had set an example to European 
 countries, laid down the principles of the construction of broken- 
 stone roads, organised his corps of day-labourers, and substituted 
 the principle of continuous upkeep for that of periodic repair. 
 Already both Ireland and Scotland had gained a lead over England 
 in the matter of road improvement. In Ireland statute labour was 
 abolished in 1765,^ and road-making entrusted to the County Grand 
 Juries. Arthur Young says that before the Act was passed, Irish 
 roads, " like those of England, remained impassable under the 
 miserable poUce of the six days' labour ; . . . now the effect in all 
 parts of the Kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable 
 to travel upon wheels by a map. I will go here, I will go there ; I 
 could trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate ; 
 and everywhere I found beautiful roads, without break or hindrance, 
 to enable me to realise my design." * In Scotland, in 1803, Com- 
 missioners were appointed for making roads in the Highlands. 
 The expense was defrayed in equal portions by grants from Parha- 
 ment and local contributions ; the assistance of Telford was secured, 
 and more than 900 miles of good roads were constructed. 
 
 England, however, still lagged behind. Various alterations in the 
 law were proposed and discussed. It was suggested that the labour 
 service should be commuted for a money payment, and that, even 
 if only a quarter of the equivalent were obtained in money, the roads 
 would gain. On the other hand, it was said that commutation 
 would be certainly unpopular with farmers, who would regard the 
 pecuniary liability as a new tax. It was urged that large districts 
 should be formed by uniting a number of parishes ; that surveyors 
 should be appointed for their knowledge of road-making, and should 
 be paid salaries ; or that, as Mace had suggested in 1675, " daymen " 
 should be continuously employed upon the roads at weekly wages. 
 It was not, however, till twenty years after the peace of 1815 that 
 any substantial legislative changes were made. Before that time 
 the science and practice, as well as the expense, of road-making and 
 repair had made considerable advance. From 1811 onwards 
 Parliamentary Committees sat almost continuously to hear evidence 
 
 1 Irish Acts, 6 Geo. III. o. 14. * Tour in Iretfmi, part ii. p. 40. 
 
McADAM AND TELFORD 287 
 
 and to report. It was gradually realised that the constmction of a 
 good road required an unusual combination of practical and scientific 
 knowledge, and that the task was not only above the abilities of 
 inexperienced surveyors, but beyond the means of the inhabitants 
 of an ordinary parish. Pubhc money was voted for the improvement 
 of national highways, and the services of the most celebrated engineer 
 of the day were enlisted in the work. Telford in 1814 was employed 
 to make good the road from Glasgow to Carlisle and in the following 
 year to reconstruct the road from Shrewsbury to Holyhead. In his 
 opinion and practice, it was necessary to make a regular bottoming 
 of rough close-set pavement, on which a hard, smooth, inelastic 
 surface could be laid, so as to minimise the labour of traction by 
 offering the least resistance. The rival system was advocated by 
 McAdam. To him the " Telford pavement " seemed unnecessary 
 for the preparation of a suitable surface. In his view an elastic 
 subsoil was even superior to a sohd foundation ; he preferred a bog 
 to a rock, provided that the bog was sufficiently solid to bear a man's 
 weight. As Surveyor-General of the Bristol roads (1815), he was 
 already putting his theories into practice on an extensive scale. 
 His practical success, his evidence before Parhamentary Committees, 
 and his skdU with the pen * persuaded the English public of the sound- 
 ness of his theory. But the battle was hotly contested, and the 
 very heat of the controversy served a useful purpose. It kept the 
 improvement of English roads prominently before the pubUc. 
 Scientific opinion, here and abroad, was on the side of Telford ; 
 but McAdam was the popular favourite. In 1827 he was appointed 
 Surveyor-Greneral of roads in Great Britain. His influence was 
 paramount, and men, in their gratitude for the unwonted luxury of 
 safe and smooth travelling in fast coaches, were not disposed to 
 criticise too closely the scientific principles of the road magician. 
 Turnpike toUs provided some of the cost of road maintenance, 
 and served as auxiharies to statute labour. For a time they satisfied 
 the urgency of the need. But the heavy interest on the loans raised 
 by the turnpike trustees, the excessive cost of management, the 
 profits exacted by those who farmed the toUs, left, at the best, 
 small margins for road expenditure. To increase the income, toll-bars 
 were multiplied or scales of payment raised. The inequality of the 
 burden was strongly felt. In one district, five tolls might be paid 
 
 • A Practical Essay of the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Ptiblie Roads 
 (1819) ; Remarks on the Present System of Road-making {1&20, 6th edition 1822). 
 
288 HIGHWAYS 
 
 in twelve miles ; in another, thirty might be travelled without a 
 single payment. The financial chaos of the trusts, as well as the 
 inadequacy of the statute laboiu*, gave a fresh impulse to the 
 ultimate triumph of the rival principle of a rate. Already Justices 
 in Quarter Sessions had been empowered to levy a rate, assessed on 
 the principle of the poor-rate, for general purposes of highway 
 maintenance when other means proved insufficient, for the purchase 
 of road material, and to buy land for the widening of highways. 
 Already also the liabiUty for statute labour might be compounded 
 by the payment of a money equivalent. In 1835 these principles 
 were extended by an Act^ which abolished statute labour and 
 substituted highway rates for the maintenance of all minor roads. 
 The abolition of statute labour was a severe loss to the turnpike 
 trusts, to whom the legislature still looked for the repair of important 
 highways. In 1839, four years after the passing of the Highway 
 Act, a Select Committee reported that in some instances the creditors 
 of turnpike trusts had seized the toUs to secure payment of the 
 interest on -their mortgages, and that nothing was available from that 
 source for road-repair. The development of railways struck the 
 trusts another blow, for the decay of the coaching-traffic deprived 
 them of one of the chief sources of their revenue. Their financial 
 position went from bad to worse. Drastic action was needed. 
 The powers of the Home Office to refuse the renewal of Turnpike 
 Acts were in 1864 transferred to a Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons. TTie new authority acted with vigour. Boads were 
 dis-tumpiked at the average rate of 1,500 miles a year. 
 
 The extinction of turnpike trusts threw upon local ratepayers a 
 heavy burden. Their existence had not reUeved the parish from its 
 old liability : their removal revived that Uability in the form of 
 increased rates. In rare instances, individuals were liable by tenure 
 or prescription for the repair of portions of public roads. But, 
 speaking generally, the parish was always responsible for the main- 
 tenance of the highways within its area. For a time, turnpike roads 
 had been partly maintained by the tolls which the trustees were 
 authorised to raise. Yet whenever the trusts neglected their work, 
 became bankrupt, or were extinguished, it was the inhabitants of the 
 parish, not the trustees, who were subject to indictment for failure to 
 maintain the roads. Tolls were subsidiary to local labour and local 
 rates ; they were substitutes for neither. Now that they were 
 1 6 and 6 Wm. IV. c. 50. 
 
HIGHWAY DISTRICTS AND MAIN ROADS 289 
 
 withdrawn, the whole burden fell on the locality. Some relief was 
 urgently needed. In order to distribute the burden more equitably, 
 the parishes were grouped into Highway Districts. Within each 
 area the cost was equalised. But parochial districts remained 
 responsible for the maintenance of roads within their areas, legally 
 liable for the extra burden if the expense was disproportion- 
 ately heavy, legally entitled to the special benefit if the cost was 
 disproportionately light. Further relief to local ratepayers was 
 required. It came in the form of excepting main roads from the 
 general law of district liability. Under the Highways and Loco- 
 motives Acts Amendment Act, 1878, the turnpike roads, whose 
 trusts had been dissolved, were made main roads, and half the cost 
 of their maintenance was transferred to the county authority, then 
 Quarter Sessions. The remainder of the liability for the repair of 
 main roads still rested on the parochial districts, a grant-in-aid 
 being made by the Government. Under the Local Grovemment 
 Act, 1888, the Cbunty Council became the county authority, and 
 parochial districts were relieved of the remaining half of their liability 
 for the maintenance of main roads, wherever situated, and the cost 
 of their upkeep was transferred to the county generally. But 
 under the PubUc Health Act, 1876, the urban authorities were 
 already responsible for the maintenance of highways within their 
 areas. The effect of the two Acts of 1875 and 1888 was that urban 
 authorities might elect either to maintaia the main roads within 
 their area themselves, or to call upon the County Council to do the 
 work. If they elected to maintain the roads themselves, the 
 measure of the Coimty Council's liability was a contribution towards 
 the cost properly incurred in the maintenance and reasonable 
 improvement of the main roads within the area. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE RURAL POPULATION. 1780-1813. 
 
 Effect of enclosures on the rural population ; no necessary reduction in the 
 number of small owners, but rather on increase ; consoUdation of farms, 
 either by purchase from small owners, or by throwing tenancies together ; 
 the strict letter of the law ; small occupiers become landless labourers ; 
 depopulation of villages when tillage was abandoned for pasture ; scarcity 
 of employment in open-field villages ; the literary controversy ; the mate- 
 rial injury inflicted upon the rural poor by the loss of the commons ; no 
 possible equivalent in cash-value : the moral injury ; the simtdtaneous 
 decay of domestic industries ; the rapid rise after 1790 in the price of 
 provisions ; a substantial advance in agricultural wages. 
 
 I>DitmG the thirty-three years from 1780 to 1813, the industrial 
 tevolution, which in agriculture was expressed by the new methods 
 and spirit of farming, influenced rural hfe in two opposite directions. 
 Far-reaching changes were made which were justified, and even , 
 demanded, by national exigencies. As, in trade, the capitalist 
 manufacturer displaced the small master-workman and domestic 
 craftsman, so, in agriculture, land was thrown together in large 
 holdings at the expense of small occupiers. Both manufacture and 
 agriculture became businesses which required the possession of 
 capital. Without money, workers, whether in trade or on land, lost 
 the prospect of themselves becoming masters or employers. But 
 the same changes which brought unexampled prosperity to land- 
 owners and large tenant-farmers, combined with other causes to 
 plunge the rest of the rural population into almost imparaJleled 
 misery. The rapid growth of manufacturing towns created a 
 new demand for bread and meat ; it raised the rents of land- 
 owners ; it swelled the profits of fanners. For a long series 
 of years the war, by practically excluding foreign com, main- 
 tained a high level of agricultural prices in spite of increased 
 production. But to labourers who neither owned nor occupied land, 
 the rise of prices brought no compensating advantages. On the 
 
AN AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 291 
 
 contrary, they paid more dearly for all necessaries of subsistence, 
 and the increased cost of Uving was not adequately met by a corre- 
 sponding rise in wages. At the same time, the steps which were 
 required for the adoption of those agricultiu'al improvements, by 
 which the manufacturing industries as well as large owners and 
 occupiers of land were profiting, multiphed the numbers and increased 
 the sufFerings of landless labourers. The extinction of open-field 
 farms reduced numbers of small occupiers to the rank of hired wage- 
 earners ; the appropriation of commons deprived many cottagers, 
 not only of free fuel, but of the means of supplementing wages by 
 the profits of their live-stock, their poultry, and their geese. In the 
 eighteenth as in the sixteenth century it was still partially true that 
 " enclosures make fat beasts and lean poor people." 
 
 The structure of rural society was affected to its very foundations 
 by the agrarian revolution which was in progress. A great popula- 
 tion, standing on the verge of famine, and beginning to gather in 
 industrial centres, cried aloud for food. Technical improvements in 
 farming had been tested, which promised to supply the new demand 
 for bread and meat, if only free play were allowed to the modem 
 methods of production. It was from this point of view that agri- 
 cultural experts, almost to a man, were unanimous in requiring the 
 removal of mediaeval obstacles to progress, and the addition of 
 every possible acre to the cultivated area. As open-field arable 
 farms were broken up, as pasture-commons were divided, as wastes 
 were brought into cultivation, the face of the country altered. The 
 enclosing movement was attacked on various grounds. To its 
 effects were attributed the disappearance of the yeomanry, using 
 the words in the strict sense of farmer-owners ; the monopoly of 
 farms, or, in other words, the consoUdation of a number of holdings 
 into single occupations ; the depopulation of rural villages ; the 
 material and moral loss which was alleged to be inflicted on the poor. 
 Bound these different points raged the contest of the latter half of 
 the eighteenth century. Meanwhile the work of enclosure went on 
 without interruption. At the present day the changes seem to have 
 been surprisingly rapid ; but to men who were living under the stress 
 of war and scarcity, they appeared ahnost criminally slow. They so 
 appeared to William Marshall, perhaps the most experienced and 
 the least bigoted of the agricultural observers of the day. Writing 
 in 1801, before the fuU pressure of famine prices had been felt, he 
 says : " Through the uncertainty and expense attending private 
 
292 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 acts, a great portion of the unstinted common lands remain nearly 
 as nature left them ; appearing in the present state of civilisation and 
 science, as filthy blotches on the face of the country ; especially when 
 seen under the threatening clouds of famine which have now 
 repeatedly overspread it." ^ 
 
 It does not appear that the necessary result of the enclosing 
 movement was to diminish the number of occupying owners. On 
 the contrary, the first effect of an enclosure was to increase the free- 
 holders, since rights of open arable field occupation and of pasture 
 common were often replaced by allotments of land in separate 
 ownership. After 1689, the decline in the number of owners of 
 small estates begins to be noted by contemporary writers.* "At 
 the Revolution," says a " Suffolk Gentleman," ' " there existed a 
 race of Men in the Country besides the Gentlemen and Husbandmen, 
 called Yeomanry, Men who cultivated their own property, consisting 
 chiefly of farms from forty to fourscore pounds a year . . . the 
 Pride of the Nation in War and Peace . . . hardy, brave, and of 
 good morals." Their alleged disappearance can only have been 
 remotely due to enclosure, if, as the " Suffolk Gentleman " says, 
 " by the influx of riches and a change of manners, they were nearly 
 annihilated in the year 1750." On the other hand, a considerable 
 body of evidence exists to show that, after the accession of George 
 m., a reaction had set in, and that small owners were not only 
 numerous, but actually increasing in numbers. Thus Marshall, 
 writing in 1790 of small freeholders both in Yorkshire (Vale of 
 Pickering) and in Leicestershire, says : " Some years back, the same 
 species of frenzy, — Terramania — showed itself here, as it did in 
 other districts. Forty years purchase was, then, not unfrequently 
 given."* The Reports to the Board of Agriculture (1793-1815) 
 show that in many parts of the countiy small owners not only held 
 their ground, but once more were buying land. Thus of the north- 
 eastern counties generally, Young " states that " farmers have been 
 very considerable purchasers of land." Norfolk (1804) is said to 
 
 ' Tha Appropriaiion and IwK/oaure of Oommonatie and Intermixed Land* 
 (1801). 
 
 'Authorities ore quoted in The Dtsappearanee of the SnuiB. Landowner, 
 by the Rev. A. H. Johnson (1909), pp. 136-8. 
 
 » Iietter to Sir T. O. Bwnhwry, Bart., on the Poor Rates and tite High Price of 
 Proviaiont (1796). 
 
 ■ Rural Economy of the Midland CounUea, vol. i. p. 16. 
 
 I Young's Hertfordshire (1804), p. 18. 
 
OCCUPYING OWNERS 293 
 
 contain " estates of all sizes, from nearly the largest scale to the little 
 freehold ; one of £25,000 a year ; one of £14,000 ; one of £13,000 ; 
 two of £10,000 ; many of about £5,000 ; and an increasing number 
 of all smaller proportions." ^ In Suffolk (1797) " the rich yeomanry " 
 are described as " very numerous . . . farmers occup3rLng their own 
 lands, of a value rising from £100 to £400 a year." * In Essex (1807), 
 " there never was a greater proportion of small and moderate- 
 sized farms, the property of mere farmers, who retain them in their 
 own immediate occupation, than at present. Such has been the 
 flourishing state of agriculture for twenty or thirty years past, that 
 scarcely an estate is sold, if divided into lots of forty or fifty to two 
 or three hundred a year, but is purchased by farmers. . . . Hence 
 arises a fair prospect of landed property gradually returning to a 
 situation of similar possession to what it was a hundred or a hundred 
 and fifty years ago, when our inferior gentry resided upon their 
 estates in the country." * 
 
 In the South-Eastern and East Midland counties, no marked 
 decrease in the number of small estates is noticed. " One third " 
 of Berkshire * is said to have been occupied in 1813 by the proprietors 
 of the soil. Owners of landed property from £200 to £600 a year 
 were " very numerous." Oxfordshire (1794) contained " many 
 proprietors of a middling size, and many small proprietors, par- 
 ticularly in the open fields." ^ In Nottinghamshire (1798) " some 
 considerable, as well as inferior yeomen occupy their own lands." * 
 Of late years in Hampshire (1813) " a considerable subdivision of 
 property has taken place." Speaking of the farmers on the chalk 
 hills of the county, the Reporter says that " many of them are the 
 possessors of small estates which their thrifty management keeps 
 upon the increase." ' In Kent, up to at least 1793, the number of 
 owners of land seemed annually on the increase, " by the estates 
 which are divided and sold to the occupiers. There is no description 
 of persons who can afford to give so much money for the purchase 
 of an estate as those who buy for their own occupation. Many in 
 the eastern part of this county have been sold, within these few 
 years, for forty, and some for fifty years purchase, and upwards." * 
 
 » Young's NorfoVc (1804), p. 17. » Young's SuffoUe (1797), p. 8. 
 
 •Young's Easex (1807), vol. i. pp. 39, 40. 
 
 « Mavor's Berkshire (1808), p. 113. ' Davis' Oxfordshire (1794), p. 11. 
 
 • Lowe's Nottinghamshire (1798), p. 8. 
 
 ' Vancouver's Hampshire (1813), pp. 61, 80. » Boys' Kent (1796), p. 26. 
 
294 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 In the West Midland and South- Western district, small owners 
 were at least holding their own. In North Wilts (1794), where a 
 considerable number of enclosures had been made, " a great deal of 
 the property has been divided and sub-divided, and gone into the 
 hands of the many." ^ Brent Marsh in Somersetshire (1797) was a 
 district of 20,000 acres which the stagnant waters rendered un- 
 wholesome to man and beast. Within the last twenty years much of 
 this land had been enclosed and drained under a variety of Acts of 
 Parhament. " Scarcely a farmer," says the Reporter, " can now 
 be found who does not possess a considerable landed property ; and 
 many, whose fathers Uved in idleness and sloth, on the precarious 
 support of a few half -starved cows, or a few limping geese, are now in 
 affluence, and blessed with every needful species of enjoyment." * 
 Devonshire (1794) continued to be a county of small properties.* 
 In Gloucestershire (1807), " the number of yeomen who possess free- 
 holds, of various value, is great, as appears from the Sheriff's return 
 of the poU at the election for a county member in 1776, when 5790 
 freeholders voted, and the number since that period is much in- 
 creased." * Landed property in Shropshire (1803) is " considerably 
 divided. . . . The number of gentlemen of small fortune living on 
 their estates, has decreased ; their descendants have been clergymen 
 or attomies, either in the country, or shopkeepers in the towns of 
 their own county ; or more probably in this county emigrated to 
 Birmingham, Liverpool, to Manchester, or to London ; but then 
 the opulent farmer, who has purchased the farm he hves upon . . . 
 is a character that has increased." ^ 
 
 The North and North- Western districts afford similar evidence, 
 though in two counties a decrease is conspicuous. In Staffordshire 
 (1813) the best and most improving farmers were " the proprietors 
 of 200 or 300 acres of land, who farm it themselves." * Derbyshire 
 (1794) possessed numerous small occupiers, who eked out the profits 
 of the land by mining, spinning, and weaving ; but there were also 
 occupiers of another description, " very properly styled yeomen ; 
 men cultivating their own estates with a sufficient capital." ^ In 
 Cheshire (1808) " the number of small land-owneis is not apparently 
 less than in other counties. The description of this latter class has, 
 
 » I>e,TriB'<WiUaMre (1794), p. 8. 'Billingsley's Somereetahire{\191), pp. 166-73. 
 * Fraser's Devonahire (1794), p. 17. * Rudge's QloueeaterBMre (1807), p. 34. 
 •Plymley's Shropshire (1803), p. 90. • Pitt's Staffordahire, (1813), p. 20. 
 ' Brown's Derbyahire (1794), p. 14. 
 
WESTMORELAND "STATESMEN" 295 
 
 however, been very much altered of late years. From the advan- 
 tages which have been derived from trade, and from the efiects of 
 the increase of taxes, which have prevented a man liviog with the 
 same degree of comfort on the same portion of land he could for- 
 merly, many of the old owners have been induced to seU. their estates ; 
 and new proprietors have spread themselves over the county, very 
 different in their habits and prejudices." ^ In Lancashire (1795) 
 " the yeomaruy, formerly numerous and respectable, have greatly 
 diminished of late, but are not yet extinct ; the great wealth, which 
 has in many instances been so rapidly acquired by some of their 
 neighbours, and probably heretofore dependants, has offered suffi- 
 cient temptation to venture their property in trade, in order that 
 they might keep pace with these fortunate adventurers. . . . Not 
 only the yeomanry, but almost all the farmers, who have raised 
 fortunes by agriculture, place their children in the manufacturing 
 line." * "A large proportion of the county of Westmoreland," says 
 the Reporter,' " is possessed by a yeomanry, who occupy small 
 estates of their own, from £10 to £50 a year." These owners, as 
 distinguished from tensint-farmers, were called " statesmen. They 
 live poorly and labour hard ; and some of them, particularly in the 
 vicinity of Kendall, in the intervals of labour from agricultural 
 avocations, busy themselves in weaving stuffs for the manufacturers 
 of that town. . . . This class of men is daily decreasing. The turn- 
 pike roads have brought the manners of the capital to this extremity 
 of the kingdom. The simpUcity of ancient times is gone. Finer 
 clothes, better dwellings, and more expensive viands, are now sought 
 after by all. This change of manners, combined with other 
 circumstances which have taken place within the last forty years, has 
 compelled many a statesman to sell his property, and reduced him to 
 the necessity of working as a labourer in those fields, which, perhaps, 
 he and his ancestors had for many generations cultivated as their 
 own." "A considerable part of the West Riding " (of Yorkshire), 
 in 1799, " is possessed by small proprietors, and this respectable 
 class of men, who generally farm their own lands, are as numerous 
 in this district as in any other part of the Kingdom." * Li the North 
 Riding (1800), " the size of estates ia very variable ; about one-third 
 of it is possessed by yeomanry . . . much the largest proportion of 
 
 1 Holland's Cheshire (1808). p. 79. ' Holt's Lancathvre (1796). p. 13. 
 
 * Pringle's Weatmordand (1794), pp. 18, 40. 
 
 * Brown's Wat Riding of Torhthire (1799). p. 7. 
 
296 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 the dales of the moorlands is in the possession of yeomaniy, rarely 
 amounting to £150 per annimi." ^ The Reporter asks " the common 
 question, whether the number of the yeomanry increases or 
 diminishes. ... In a country hke this, which is merely agricultural, 
 I should suspect them to increase, in consequence of large properties 
 having in late years been sold in parcels, and there being but few 
 instances of gentlemen ah%ady possessed of considerable estates, 
 making large purchases." 
 
 The Reports to the Board of Agriculture show that small owners 
 were still numerous in many counties, and were increasing inNorfolk, 
 Essex, in Hampshire, and Kent, in North WUts, Somerset, Gloucester- 
 shire, Shropshire, and the North Riding of Yorkshire. They were 
 dwindling in Lancashire, which was rapidly developing as a manu- 
 facturing centre, and in Westmoreland, where the hard penurious 
 lives of the older race of statesmen were not congenial to their 
 descendants. In Hertfordshire farmers were not buying land, unlike 
 their brethren in the eastern counties ; ^ but possibly the competi- 
 tion of city merchants gave land in the neighbourhood of London a 
 residential value. In Warwickshire (1794) it is definitely stated that 
 consoUdation of farms was driving occupiers off the land. The 
 Reporter is speaking of open fields " in the southern and eastern 
 parts of this county," which had been enclosed, and mostly conver- 
 ted into pasture. " These lands, being now grazed, want much fewer 
 hands to manage them than they did in their former open state. 
 Upon all enclosures of open-fields, the farms have generally been 
 made much larger ; from these causes, the hardy yeomanry of 
 country villages have been driven for employment into Birmingham, 
 Coventry, and other manufacturing towns, whose flourishing trade 
 has sometimes found them profitable employment." ' But though 
 in this passage the word " yeomanry " * is used, it by no means 
 
 1 TukB'a NorA Riding (ISOO), pp. 2S, 28. 'Young's Hert/ordsftiret 1804), p. 18. 
 
 * Wedge's WartBtcktMre (1794), p. 20. 
 
 * The word " yeoman," which certainly included leaseholders for lives, and 
 copyholders, was not confined to owners of land which they cultivated with 
 their own hands, without being entitled to a crest. Bacon {Works, voL vi. 
 p. 96) defines the English yeomanry as " the middle people between gentlemen 
 and peasants," many of them living on " tenancies for years, lives aad at 
 wilL" Latimer's " father was a yeoman, but had no land of his own." He 
 rented his occupation at £4 a year, and was a tenant-farmer. Blackstone 
 uses the word as equivalent to qualified rural voters (OommetUariee, bk. i. oh. 
 12). The definite restriction of the word to farmer-owners is a comparatively 
 
 ^nodem usage belonging to the nineteenth centiuy. See Dictionary of Political 
 Economy, s.v. Yeoman. 
 
PASTURE RIGHTS 297 
 
 follows that it is employed in the strict sense of occupiers who owned 
 the land which they cultivated themselves. More probably it bears 
 the looser meaning of " open-field fanners," with all their picturesque 
 varieties of land tenure. Be this as it may, the evidence of the 
 Reports is strong as to the general conditions of the country. In 
 the period which they cover, and for a few years before, no great 
 inroad had been made on the numbers of small owners. No neces- 
 sary connection can, therefore, be established between the break-up 
 of open-field farms and the alleged disappearance of farmer-owners. 
 The passage quoted from the Warwickshire Report indicates the 
 lines on which the conflicting assertions of advocates and opponents 
 of enclosures may be reconciled. The consequences, and often the 
 objects, of the extinction of the system of intermixed arable strips 
 on the open-fields, and of the partition of the pasture-commons were, 
 generally speaking, the consohdation of larger holdings in the 
 separate occupation of individuals. The village farm, as has been 
 previously stated, consisted of two parts. There was the arable 
 land, cultivated in intermixed strips ; there were the grazing rights 
 exercised over the pasture commons. Both in legal theory and as 
 a historical fact, only the partners iu the cultivation of the tillage 
 land were entitled to the pasture rights, which were limited to each 
 individual by the size of his arable holding. Outside this close 
 corporation any persons who turned ia stock were trespassers ; they 
 encroached, not only on the rights of the owner of the soil, but on 
 the rights of those arable farmers to whom the herbage belonged. 
 Strangers might be able to establish their rights ; but the burden 
 of proof lay upon them. Similarly, it was only by long usage that 
 occupiers who rented ancient cottages could exercise pasture rights, 
 unless they also occupied arable land with their houses. The 
 statute of Elizabeth (31 Eliz. c. 7, 1589) which ordered that four 
 acres of land should be attached to each cottage let to agricultural 
 labourers, evidently refers to four acres of tillage. If no arable land 
 was attached to the cottage, the occupier might enjoy the right of 
 providing himself with fuel, but he could not turn out stock. It 
 was on these strict lines that enclosure proceeded, and one of its 
 promised advantages was the power of dealing with compact blocks 
 of land. In pursuance of this policy, Edward Laurence^ in 1727, 
 instructs his steward to purchase " aU the Freeholders out as soon as 
 possible " ; to " convert copyholds for lives into leaseholds for 
 lives " ; to " get rid of Farms of £8 or £10 per annum, always suppos- 
 
298 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 ing that some care be taken of the families " ; to " lay all the small 
 Farms, let to poor indigent People, to the great ones," not foigetting 
 that " it is much more reasonable and popular to stay till such Farms 
 fall into Hand by Death." ^ This policy of substituting one large 
 tenant for several small occupiers was generally pursued. Beyond 
 possibility of dispute the Reports to the Board of Agriculture prove 
 the tendency towards that " engrossment " of farms which Tudor 
 writers denounced.' 
 
 The consolidation of holdings afEected the old occupiers in very 
 different ways. Where land was held by freeholders, copyholders of 
 inheritance, or leaseholders for lives with outstanding terms, the 
 process of collecting large areas in the hands of one owner could 
 only be effected by purchase. On the enclosure of an open-field 
 farm with a common attached, each proprietor had received a 
 compact block, representing his intermixed arable strips, and an 
 allotment corresponding in value to his pasture rights. Sometimes 
 the area was so small as not to pay the cost of fencing ; it was sold 
 at once, often before the award was published. In some cases, the 
 rising standard of living, the loss of their domestic industries, the 
 attractions of the rapid fortunes realised in trade, the temptation of 
 the high prices which land commanded during the war, induced small 
 owners to sell their estates. Others who for a time clung to their 
 property found themselves, at a later stage, compelled to part with 
 it by the increase in taxation, by the enormous rise in the poor rates, 
 by the pressure of mortgages contracted for additional purchases, 
 jointures, and portions, or by the fluctuations of agricultural prices, 
 or by the failure of banks. The period at which farmer-owners 
 diminished most rapidly in numbers was between the years 1813 
 and 1835. ' 
 
 Beyond the classes whose occupation of land or rights of com- 
 mon were of an independent or a permanent nature, no claim was, 
 as a rule, recognised by enclosure commissioners. If any compensa- 
 tion was made, it was on voluntary and charitable lines. The 
 strict letter of the law was generally followed. Occupiers of arable 
 
 1 thOy of a Steward to hia Lord, pp. 37, 60, 65, 36. 
 
 * Thomas Wright, in TJte Monopoly of SnuM. Farms a great cause of the 
 present ScaroUy (1796), p. 9, urges the formation of societies to purchase large 
 estates, divide them into small farms, and let or sell them to small farmers. 
 " It is computed," writes the author of A Plan for Relieving the Rates by Cottage 
 Acres, etc. (1817), " that since the year 1760 there have been upwards of forty 
 thousand small forms monopolised and consolidated into large ones and as 
 many cottages annihilated." 
 
RURAL DEPOPXJLATION 299 
 
 land, whose tenure depended on the will of the owner from whom 
 their rights were derived, had no independent or permanent title 
 to the strips which they cultivated, or to the conunon of pasture 
 which they had enjoyed in virtue of their arable holdings. Many 
 of them were offered no chance of renting land under the new system. 
 If the holdings were thrown together, and let to a farmer with 
 sufficient capital, the previous occupiers were at once reduced to 
 landless labourers. If the open-field farmer was allowed to remain 
 in the separate occupation of a compact holding, formed out of his 
 arable strips and commuted common rights, he was often ham- 
 pered by insufficient grass, by scanty capital, by the novelty of 
 his new position, by ignorance of any but the traditional practices 
 of farming. He went from bad to worse, and was in the end com- 
 pelled to surrender his land and compete for employment for 
 wages. Cottagers, who occupied at a yearly rent the ancient 
 cottages to which common rights were attached, received no 
 compensation for the loss of rights which they only exercised as 
 tenants. Squatters, who had encroached on the wastes and com- 
 mons, and had not made good their titles by prescriptive occupa- 
 tion, were evicted. Whether the village was depopulated by the 
 change or not, mainly depended on the use to which the enclosed 
 land was put.^ If, as in the Warwickshire case, the tillage was 
 converted into pasture, employment was reduced, and the rural 
 population decreased. When, on the other hand, the breadth of 
 tillage was either maintained or extended, and when the modem 
 improvements in farming were introduced, there was an increase 
 in emplo^nent and also in niunbers. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that village farms created a 
 demand for agricultural labour, or offered facilities' for acquiring 
 land to increasing numbers. The contrary was the case. The 
 open-field system was inelastic, adapted for a stationary popula- 
 tion, dependent for the employment of surplus numbers on the 
 large enclosed farms of the neighbourhood, or on the practice of 
 domestic handicrafts, eked out by common-rights exercised under 
 l^al titles or by successful encroachments. The smaller occupiers, 
 their wives and famihes, tilled their holdings for themselves ; the 
 common herdsman, shepherd, and swineherd tended their live-stock. 
 
 ^ The question of depopulation is discussed in William Wales' Inquiry into 
 the Present State of Population in England and Wales (1781), and in the Bev. 
 John Hewlett's Enquiry into the Influence which Endosures have had upon the 
 Population of England (1786). 
 
300 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 On middle-sized occupations, servants in husbandry, annually 
 hired at the fairs for fixed yearly wages, and boarded and lodged 
 in the house, did the work of the farm. Except at harvest there 
 was little demand for day-labour. Threshing, the most unwhole- 
 some of rural occupations, was practically the only winter employ- 
 ment. On the open-fields, there were no quickset hedges to plash, 
 or trim, or weed ; no ditches to scour ; no drains to maintain. 
 There were no drilled crops to keep clean ; turnips were seldom 
 grown, and beans rarely hoed. This scarcity of constant, and 
 especially of winter, employment, which will probably be reproduced 
 under the rule of small holdings, partly explains the slow growth 
 of rural population. It also emphasises the value to day-labourers 
 of coDunons and domestic handicrafts. Without them it is difficult 
 to understand how agricultural labourers, who were not partners 
 in village farms, even existed. " In hay and harvest time," writes 
 Forster,^ " it is inconceivable what numbers of tradesmen and 
 handicraftsmen flock into the country." " If," says Stone, " the 
 farmers in the most unenclosed counties . . . where there are no 
 manufactories, could get no further assistance during their harvest 
 than from their own inhabitants, their grain would frequently be 
 spoiled." * To the same eflEect wrote the Reporters to the Board 
 of Agriculture. Open-field farmers were in harvest dependent on 
 migratory labour. In unenclosed counties, says the Report to 
 the Board for Huntingdonshire, very Uttle employment of a constant 
 kind was given to labourers, who stop with the farmers to help 
 thresh out their grain in the winter, and " leave for more cultivated 
 counties where labour is more required." The open-field farmer of 
 the county depended for harvesting on " the wandering Irish, 
 manufacturers from Leicestershire and other distant counties." 
 The same was said to be true of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. 
 In Wiltshire, the crops were harvested by taskers " from the more 
 populous parts of the county or from Somersetshire, or other 
 neighbouring counties." ' In the Isle of Wight, during the harvest 
 of 1793, there were " from 600 to 700 " labourers employed " from 
 Dorsetshire and West Somerset." It illustrates the times to add 
 that, as there was a hot press out for the Navy, they came and 
 went with a pass from the Government.* In Herefordshire the 
 
 * Enquiry into the Present High Price of Provituma (1767). 
 
 ' Suggestions, etc., p. 31. * Davis' Wiltshire (1794), p. 89. 
 
 ' Driver's Hampshire (1794), p. 66. 
 
RURAL DEPOPULATION 301 
 
 crops were harvested by Welshmen from Cardiganshiie, men 
 owning one horse between four or five, riding bare-backed, turn 
 and turn about, and " covering great distances with extraordinary 
 speed." 1 
 
 Unclosed counties where tillage was maintained, therefore, 
 already afforded lajrger and more constant employment than unen- 
 closed counties. Still greater was the demand for labour, where 
 the improved practices had been adopted. If, however, the 
 enclosed arable land was laid down to grass, the opposite effect 
 was produced. Up to the last decade of the eighteenth century, 
 it is probable that open arable farms, especially in the Midland 
 counties, were mainly enclosed for conversion to pasture. In the 
 later stages of the Napoleonic wars this tendency to grass-farming 
 waa not only checked, but violently reversed, and large tracts of 
 pasture were ploughed for com. Yet, during the first thirty years 
 of the reign of George HI., the occupiers of village farms had 
 reason to fear, not only loss of their holdings, but scarcity of employ- 
 ment. Anonymous pamphlets are not the most reliable evidence ; 
 but the " Country Gentleman" * is quoted by the Board of Agriculture 
 with approval. His description of the dislike and alarm with which 
 schemes of enclosure were regarded by the rural population may 
 therefore be accepted as true : — " the great farmer dreads an 
 increase of rent, and being constrained to a system of agriculture 
 which neither his inclination or experience would tempt him to ; 
 the small farmer, that his farm will be taken from him and con- 
 solidated with the larger ; the cottager not only expects to lose 
 his commons, but the inheritable consequences of the diminution 
 of labour, the being obliged to quit his native place in search of 
 work." Their fears were often justified. Many an open-field 
 farmer verified the truth of the " Country Gentleman's " conclusion 
 that, after enclosure, " he must of necessity give over farming, and 
 betake himself to labour for the support of his family." Hundreds 
 of cottagers, deprived of the commons, experienced that lack of 
 rural employment which drove them into the towns in search of 
 work. To make the lot of these " reduced farmers " as easy as 
 possible, he recommended that a " sufficient portion of land " 
 should be attached to their cottages to enable them to keep a cow 
 
 1 Clark's Herefordshire (1794), p. 29. 
 
 * The Advantages and Disadvantages of enclosing Waste Lands and Oommon 
 Fiel/is, hy a Country Gentleman (1772), pp. 8, 32. 
 
302 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 or two. With the gloomy forebodings of the " Country Grentleman " 
 may be contrasted the triumphant hopefulness of Arthur Young. 
 Both wrote at the same date ; yet the gloom of the one and the 
 hopes of the other were equally well founded in the districts to which 
 they respectively refer. What, asks Young, will opponents " say 
 to the inclosures in Norfolk, Suffolk, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, 
 Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and aU the northern counties ? What say 
 they to the sands of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Nottinghamshire, which 
 yield com and mutton and beef from the force of ENCLOSURE 
 alone ? What say they to the Wolds of York and Lincoln, which 
 from barren heaths at Is. per acre are by INCLOSURE alone 
 rendered profitable farms ? . . . What say they to the vast 
 tracts in the peak of Derby which by INCLOSURE aione 
 are changed from black regions of ling to fertile fields covered 
 with cattle ? What say they to the improvements of moors in 
 the northern counties, where INCLOSURES alone have made 
 those countries smile with culture which before were dreary as 
 night ? " 1 
 
 In 1774, when both Arthur Young and the " Country Gentleman " 
 were writing, improved methods of arable farming and the use of 
 roots, clover, and artificial grasses had not extended beyond a few 
 favoured districts ; com and cattle were still treated as distinct 
 departments of farming, impossible on the same land ; the ten- 
 dency was still strong to convert arable land into pasture ; the 
 science of stock-breeding and stock-rearing was still in its infancy ; 
 improved means of communication had not relieved farmers in 
 almost every district from the necessity of devoting the greater 
 part of their holdings to corn-growing, or enabled them to put 
 their land to the best use by facilitating the interchange of arable 
 produce ; above all, no urgent demand for meat and milk, as well 
 as bread, was as yet made by a rapidly growing class of artisans. 
 In another twenty years these conditions had been changed, or 
 were altering fast. But it is to this early period, when arable 
 land was being converted to pasture, and the superiority of the 
 new agricultural methods was still disputed, that nearly all the 
 writers belonged, who are most frequently quoted for or against 
 enclosures. After 1790 no voice is raised against the movement 
 on any other ground than the moral and social injury inflicted 
 upon open-field farmers and commoners. The economic gain is 
 * Political Arithmetic (1774), p. 160. 
 
CHANGE m ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENCLOSURES 303 
 
 admitted.^ Individual occupation, as an instrument of scientific 
 and practical fanning and of increased production, had demon- 
 strated its superiority over commonable fields. The supply of eggs 
 and poultry may have dwindled ; but it was more than compen- 
 sated by the larger supply of bread and meat. The arguments of 
 the deserted village and of scarcity of employment were losing 
 their force, when, under the strong pressure of necessity, the reac- 
 tion had set in from pasture to extended tillage. In these directions 
 the defence of the enclosing movement was immensely strengthened. 
 But, during the same period, the social results of the agrarian revolu- 
 tion were rapidly reveahng themselves, and were attracting increased 
 attention. Those results, aggravated in their evil eflPects by 
 
 ' The following works may be quoted in proof : 
 
 1. Essay on the Nature and Method of ascertaining the Speeifick Shares of 
 
 Proprietors upon the Jndasure of Common Fields, by H. S. Homer, 1766. 
 
 2. An Enquiry into the Seasons For and Against Inclosing the Open Fields, 
 
 by a member of the Legislature, 1767. 
 
 3. An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present High Price of Provisions, by 
 Nathaniel Forster, 1767. 
 
 4. Beflections on Inclosing Large Commons and Common Fields, by W. 
 Pennington, 1769. 
 
 6. Observcaions on Reversionary Payments, etc., by Richard Price, 1771. 
 
 6. The Advantages and Disadvantages of inclosing Waste Lands and Open 
 Fields, by a Ck>untry Gentleman, 1772. 
 
 7. An Inquiry into the Reasons For and Against incHoaing Open Fields, by 
 Stephen Addington, 2nd edition, 1772. 
 
 8. An Inquiry into the Connection between the present price of provisions and 
 the Size of Farms, by a Farmer [John Arbuthnot], 1773. 
 
 9. Four Tracts, together with Two Sermons, on political and commercial 
 
 subjects, by Josiah Tucker, 1774. 
 10. Hints to Oentlemen of Landed Property, by Nathaniel Kent, 1777. 
 JH. An Enquiry into the Advantages and Disadvantages resvUing from BiUs 
 
 of Indosure, etc.. Anon, 1780. 
 
 12. Observations on a Panvphlet entitled An Enquiry into the Advantages, etc.. 
 Anon, 1781 (an answer to the foregoing). 
 
 13. Cursory Remarks on the Importance of Agriculture, by W. Lamport, 1784. 
 
 14. A PolMctA Enquiry into the Consequences of Enclosing Waste Lands, 
 Being the sentiments of a Society of Farmers in shire, 1785. 
 
 16. An Enquiry into the Influerux which Enclosures have had upon the Popula- 
 tion of England, by John Hewlett, 1786. 
 
 16. Cursory Remarks on Inclosures, etc., by a Country Farmer, 1786. 
 
 17. Enclosures a Cause of Im/proved Agriculture, etc., by John Hewlett, 1787. 
 
 18. Suggestions for rendering the Indoswre of Camimnn Fields and Waste 
 Lands a source of Population and Riches, by Thomas Stone, 1787. 
 
 An apparent exception is one of the most interesting works on the subject, 
 namely : 
 
 19. TIte Case of Labourers in Husbandry Stated and Considered, by David 
 Davies, 1796. 
 
 But the material was collected in 1787. The high prices of com, 1766-74, 
 seem to have given an impulse to enclosures and produced a crop of literature. 
 
304 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 industrial changes and the operation of the Poor Law, were disas- 
 trous to a large number of open-field farmers, cottagers, and 
 commoners who had lost their hold upon the land. The strongest 
 argument against enclosures was the material and moral damage 
 inflicted upon the poor. 
 
 In comparatively rare instances commoners who exercised com- 
 mon-rights were not put to strict proof of their legal title. Even 
 where this lenient poUcy was adopted, or where the right was 
 established at law, the claim was often supposed to be satisfied by 
 the gift of a sum of money, or by an allotment of land. Money, 
 to a man who had no power of investment, was a precarious pro- 
 vision, which generally was soon spent. Land was a better sub- 
 stitute ; but the allotment might be too small to repay the cost of 
 fencing, or too distant to be of real benefit ; it was seldom enough 
 for the summer and winter keep of a cow. The land and the cow 
 were often sold together, as soon as, or sometimes before, the 
 award was made. Sometimes, again, legal principles were set 
 aside, and -allotments of land, more or less inadequate, were made 
 for cottage building, or for the benefit of the poor of the parish 
 to supply pasture or fuel. But probably less than 5 per cent, of 
 the enclosure Acts made any provision of this kiud. 
 
 The injury inflicted on the poor by the loss of their common of 
 pasture, whether legally exercised or not, was indisputably great. 
 It was admitted by those who, on other grounds, were the strongest 
 supporters of enclosures. Arthur Young himself, though he never 
 swerved from his advocacy of large enclosed holdings, had been 
 converted to the principle of an admixture of occupying ownerships 
 for small farmers. His travels in France had shown him the 
 " magic of property " at work. In England he had witnessed its 
 effects in the Isle of Axholme. " In respect of property," he 
 writes,^ " I know nothing more singular respecting it, than its 
 great division in the isle of Axholm. In most of the towns there, 
 for it is not quite general, there is much resemblance of some rich 
 parts of France and Flanders. The inhabitants are collected in 
 villages and hamlets ; and almost every house you see, except 
 very poor cottages on the borders of commons, is inhabited by a 
 farmer, the proprietor of his farm, of from four or five, and even 
 fewer, to twenty, forty, and more acres, scattered about the open- 
 fields, and cultivated with all that minutisB of care and anxiety, by 
 1 LmeolnsMre (1799), p. 17. 
 
COW-KEEPING ON COMMONS 305 
 
 the hands of the family, which are found abroad, in the countries 
 mentioned. They are very poor, respecting money, but very happy 
 respecting their mode of existence. Contrivance, mutual assist- 
 ance, by barter and hire, enable them to manage these httle farms 
 though they break aU the rules of rural proportion." 
 
 On these Hues, he urged in 1800 ^ that every scrap of waste and 
 neglected land should be converted into possessions for the poor, 
 and that aU labourers should be assigned gardens and grass-land 
 for the keep of a cow. In 1801 * he proposed that labourers should 
 be allowed to absorb for themselves the small commons which 
 were situated in the centre of enclosed districts, and that all Acts 
 of Parliament for the reclamation of wastes should attach enough 
 land to every cottage to provide summer and winter keep for a 
 cow, the land to be inalienable and vested in the parish. He 
 based these recommendations on his own personal observations of 
 the effect of the enclosure of commons. " Many kept cows that 
 have not since " is his frequent summary of results. Out of 37 
 parishes, he found only 12 in which the poor had not suffered.* 
 " By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of twenty, the poor are injured, 
 in some grossly injured. . . . The poor in these parishes may 
 say, and with truth. Parliament may be tender of property ; aU I 
 know is I had a cow, and an Act of Parliament has taken it from 
 me." ^ The Board of Agriculture printed evidence to the same 
 effect.^ Out of 68 Enclosure Acts, 53 had injured the poor, who had 
 lost their cows, and could no longer buy milk for their families. 
 The same point is frequently noticed by the Beporters. Nathaniel 
 Kent, for example, dweUs upon it in his Beport on Norfolk, and 
 urges " all great farmers ... to provide comfortable cottages for 
 two or three of their most industrious labourers, and to lay two or 
 three acres of grass land to each to enable such labourer to keep 
 a cow and a pig." * Yet even when the opportunity to keep a 
 cow occurred, it was not invariably used. " Cottagers," says Kent, 
 "who Uve at the sides of the common generally neglect the advantage 
 they have before them. There is not, perhaps, one out of six, 
 
 * Qviestium of ScarcHy plainly stated (1800). 
 
 * Inquiry into the Propriety of applying Wastes to the better Maintenanee 
 and Support of the Poor (1801). 
 
 • Ibid, p 19. • Ibid. p. 42. 
 ' General Beport on Enclosures, 1808, pp. 160-2. 
 
 • Kent's Norfolk, p. 172. 
 
 U 
 
306 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 apon an average that keeps even a cow." ^ Nor was the disappear- 
 ance of the cow invariably due to the loss of commons. Some- 
 times commercial motives operated. At Baldon, in Oxfordshire, 
 " many cottagers had two, three or four acres, and they kept 
 cows ; now, stiU having the land, they keep no cows ; their rent 
 from 30s. to 42s. per acre and all applied as arable."^ In this 
 instance, at all events, the cheapness of butter and the high price 
 of wheat had tempted these men to plough up their grass-land. 
 
 Whatever exceptions there may have been, the loss of the cow 
 generally followed the loss of the commons. Nor was this the only 
 injury which the cottager suffered. He lost his free firing, and the 
 run for his geese and poultry. It is, in fact, impossible to meeisure 
 in terms of cash equivalents the benefits derived from the commons, 
 or the loss infiicted by their withdrawal. The case is well sum- 
 marised by Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet of rural life : 
 
 Thomas (tog.) : Why, 'tis a handy thing 
 
 To have a bit o' common, I do know. 
 
 To put a little cow upon in spring. 
 
 The while woone's bit ov orchard grass do grow. 
 John : Aye, that's the thing, you zee. Now I do mow 
 
 My bit o' grass, an meake a little rick ; 
 
 An' in the zummer, while do grow, 
 
 My cow do run in common vor to pick 
 
 A bleade or two o' grass, if she can vind em, 
 
 Vor tother cattle don't leave much behind em. 
 
 An' then, bezides the cow, why we do let 
 
 Our geese run out among the emmet hills ; 
 
 An' then, when we do pluck em, we do get 
 
 Vor zeale zome veathers an' zome quills ; 
 
 An' in the winter we do fat em well. 
 
 An' car em to the market vor to zell 
 
 To gentle-volks 
 
 An' then, when I ha' noth^n else to do, 
 
 AVhy, I can teake my hook an' gloves, an' goo 
 
 To cut a lot o' vuzz and briars 
 
 Vor het^n ovens or vor lighten viers ; 
 
 An' when the childem be too young to earn 
 
 A penny, they can g'out in zunny weather. 
 
 An' run about, an' get together 
 
 A bag o' cow-dung vor to bum. 
 
 The material loss inflicted on the poor was great : still more 
 serious was the moral damage. It is probably true that the com- 
 mons had attracted to their borders numbers of the idle and 
 dissolute. But it is equally certain that they also afforded to 
 hard-working and thrifty peasants the means of supplementing 
 
 ' HiMa to Gentfcmen (1776), p. 112. « Young's Oxfordshire, p. 23. 
 
MORAL DAMAGE FROM LOSS OF COMMONS 307 
 
 their weekly wages. They gave the man who enjoyed rights of 
 common, and Uved near enough to use them, an interest in the 
 land and the hope of acquiring a larger interest. They encouraged 
 his thrift and fostered his independence. Men who had grazing 
 rights hoarded their money to buy a cow. They enabled wage- 
 earners to keep live-stock, which was something of their own. 
 They gave them fuel, instead of driving them to the baker for 
 every sort of cooking. They formed the lowest rung in the social 
 ladder, by which the successful commoner might hope to climb to 
 the occupation of a holding suited to bis capital. Now the com- 
 mons were gone, and the farms which replaced them were too 
 large to be attainable. Contemporary writers who comment on 
 the increasing degradation of the labouring classes too often treat 
 as its causes changes which were really its consequences. They 
 note the increase of drunkenness, but forget that the occupation 
 of the labourer's idle moments was gone ; they attack the mis- 
 chievous practice of giving children tea, but forget that milk was 
 no longer procurable ; they condemn the rising generation as 
 incapable for farm labour, but forget that the parents no longer 
 occupied land on which their children could learn to work ; they 
 deplore the helplessness of the modem wives of cottagers who had 
 become dependent on the village baker, but forget that they were 
 now obliged to buy flour, and had lost their free fuel ; they denounce 
 their improvident marriages, but forget that the motive of thrift 
 was removed. The results were the hopelessness, the indifference, 
 and the moral deterioration of the landless labourer. " Go," says 
 Arthur Young, " to an ale-house kitchen of an old enclosed country, 
 and there you will see the origin of poverty and the poor-rates. 
 For whom are they to be sober ? For whom are they to save ? 
 (such are their questions). For the parish ? If I am dihgent, 
 shall I have leave to build a cottage ? If I am sober, shall I have 
 land for a cow ? If I am frugal, shall I have half an acre of 
 potatoes ? You offer no motives ; you have nothing but a parish 
 ofl&cer and a workhouse. Bring me another pot." ^ The same 
 point is urged, with less vivacity and picturesqueness of statement, 
 by the best writers of the day, especially by Howlett and Davies. 
 
 The displacement of numbers of cottagers, commoners, and open- 
 field farmers came at a difficult crisis. Hitherto rural labourers 
 in many parts of the country had regarded day work for wages 
 
 » Annala of Agriculture, vol. xxxvi. p. 608. On Wastes (1801), pp. 12, 13. 
 
308 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 on the land of farmers as a by-employment, which eked out the 
 profits of their other industries. Now the commons were gone, 
 and at the same time their own domestic handicrafts were being 
 superseded by manufactured goods. It was now that the industrial 
 population was shifting from the South to the North ; that spinning 
 and weaving deserted the home for the factory ; that old markets 
 were exchanged for the new centres of trade which gathered round 
 the water-power or the coal and iron fields of the North. In the 
 closing years of the eighteenth century, widespread complaints 
 are made of decaying industries, of the loss of employment in rural 
 districts, of the mass of pauperism bequeathed to small towns 
 and villages by the departure of trades. 
 
 Industries, which in 1800 were concentrating in the large towns 
 of the North, had been previously scattered over a wide extent of 
 coimtry districts. Even where the trade maintaiaed its ground, 
 the introduction of machinery reduced the amount of employment, 
 and transferred it from the cottage to the factory. At the same 
 time many local manufactories were brought to the verge of ruin 
 by the war, which limited the export trade. As the restilt of these 
 changes in the conditions of rural life, poor-rates rose to an enormous 
 height. Marshall, in his Beview of the Beports to the Board of 
 Agriculture, mentions the instance of CoggeshaU in Essex, once a 
 fiourishing village, where the poor-rates, owing to the ruin of the 
 baize trade, had risen to 16s. in the pound. This burden, increased 
 as it was by the provision for the maintenance of the wives and 
 famihes of militiamen, enlisted soldiers and sailors, crushed out of 
 existence many small freeholders, who, because they employed no 
 labour, derived no advantage from the operation of the Poor Law, 
 but were assessed on the rental value of their land. As the local 
 industries declined, or were concentrated in towns, or substituted 
 machinery for manual work, the demand for labour waa reduced 
 in rural villages. Fewer opporttmities for supplementing weekly 
 wages by other employments were afforded. It was now that the 
 South and South Midlands fell hopelessly behind the North. 
 
 It is difficult to give any adequate impression of the degree in 
 which, under the dying system of seU-contained communities, indus- 
 trial employments other than those of agriculture had been distri- 
 buted among rural villages. Counties which at first sight seem 
 purely agricultural, possessed a number of local iudustries, which, 
 in addition to dyeworks, malthouses, breweries, mills, and tanneries. 
 
LOCAL INDUSTRIES AND HOME CRAFTS 309 
 
 gave considerable employment. Bedfordshire had its osier baskets, 
 its reed matting, its straw plaiting ; its spinning of hemp had died 
 out in 1803, but men as well as women still made pillow lace. Straw- 
 plaiting extended along the borders of Buckinghamshire, Hertford- 
 shire, and Cambridgeshire. The best, that is, the weakest straw, 
 commanded high prices, and sold for from 2d. to 4d. the pound. In 
 Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, woollen and worsted yam 
 was also spun for Norwich and the northern markets. Lincolnshire 
 wove fabrics for women's dresses ; Epworth made sack-cloth ; 
 coarse linen or hempen cloth was woven in many parts of the 
 county. Suffolk had its spinning and combing of wool ; and in the 
 district round Beccles, where hemp was largely cultivated, quantities 
 of hempen cloth were manufactured. Essex was famous for its 
 baizes. But the trade was for the time ruined by the war. In the 
 neighbourhood of Colchester, where during peace 20,000 persons had 
 found employment, only 8,000 were now employed. At Halstead, 
 Dedham, Booking, and the surrounding villages, the industry had so 
 decayed that numbers of hands were out of work, and the rates rose 
 to over 20s. in the pound. 
 
 Hampshire was not a manufacturing county. But it had a 
 variety of industries ranging from manufactories of cloth, shalloons 
 and coarse woollens, to bed-ticking and earthenware pottery. Kent 
 was the county of hops ; yet Canterbury and the villages round 
 wove silk ; Dover and Maidstone made paper ; Cra37ford bleached 
 linens and printed calicoes ; Whitstable had its copperas works. 
 Sandwich its salt-works, Faversham and Deptford their powder 
 mills. Along the banks of the Wandle in Surrey were paper, oil, 
 snuff and flour mills, mills for grinding logwood, as well as leather, 
 parchment, calico, and printing works. The Mole turned iron mills 
 at Cobham and flatting mills at Ember Court. The Wey collected 
 on its banks many paper mills. In the Weald there still lingered 
 iron-workers and charcoal burners. Godalming and the neighbour- 
 hood had its patent fleecy hosiery, its works for wool-combing, for 
 blankets, tilts, and collar-cloths. Sussex formerly sent every year 
 quantities of iron by land-carriage to London ; but the trade was 
 dying fast. It still remained one of the chief centres of the charcoal 
 industry and of powder making. In Berkshire the woollen manu- 
 factures were dwindling. They were deserting Newbury, leaving 
 behind a " numerous poor." But in the town and neighbourhood, 
 kerseys, cottons, calicoes, linen and damask were still made, and the 
 
310 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 introduction of the manufacture of blankets was attempted. At 
 OaJdngham there were established silk-spinning and silk-weaving 
 manufactories, and a considerable trade was carried on in hat-bands, 
 ribbons, watch-strings, shoe-strings, sarcenets, and figured gauzes 
 for women's dresses. Li Oxfordshire the shag-weavers of Bloxham 
 and Banbury were out of employment and on the parish. The 
 coarse velvet trade of Banbury was travelling north. The blankets 
 of Witney still held their own ; but the introduction of machinery 
 had thrown two-thirds of the workmen out of employment, and the 
 rates had risen to lis. in the pound. The glove trade of Woodstock 
 flourished ; but the polished steel trade had migrated to Birmingham 
 and Sheffield, and leathern breeches, no longer worn, had ceased to 
 be made. 
 
 Northampton and the surrounding neighbourhood were already 
 famous for boots ; Daventry manufactured whips and wove silk 
 stockings ; in Wellingborough and the surrounding villages lace- 
 making employed from 9,000 to 10,000 persons, the thread being 
 imported from Flanders and distributed to the workers in their 
 houses. Since the war, the worsted manufactories of Kettering 
 had decayed ; instead of from 5,000 to 6,000 hands, only half were 
 employed, and the remainder fell upon the rates. Warwickshire, 
 Nottinghamshire, and Staffordshire were becoming manufacturing 
 counties. Machinery was being introduced, and, as a consequence, 
 their industries were being withdrawn from the villages and con- 
 centrated in towns. Outside Birmiagham, there were the ribbon 
 and tammy trades of Coventry, the horn combs of Kenilworth, the 
 nails of Bromwich, the needles of Alcester, the worsted works of 
 Warwick, the linen trade of Tamworth. For miles round Notting- 
 ham the villagers were stocking-makers ; in different parts of the 
 county were scattered mills for combing and spinniog wool, or 
 silk spinning and weaving, for polishing marble, as well as works 
 for the manufacture of pottery, starch, and sail-cloth. Few cottagers 
 were without a web of home-spun cloth. Shropshire had a great 
 variety of local industries, such as garden pots at Broseley ; fine 
 china at Oaughley ; china, ropes, and chains at Coalport ; glass 
 works at Donnington ; dye-works at Lebotwood ; Shrewsbury and 
 the neighbourhood maintained spinning and fulling mills, a trade in 
 finishing Welsh flannels, manufactures of coarse linens and linen 
 threads. In many cottages and farm-houses pieces of linen cloth 
 were got up for sale. The glove trade of Worpester employed a 
 
CLOTH TRADE IN THE SOUTH-WEST 311 
 
 large number of men and women in the city itself, and in the " comity 
 romid to the extent of seven or eight miles." Kidderminster and 
 the neighbourhood were carpet-makers. On the borders of Stafford- 
 shire and Warwickshire many were employed in making nails, 
 needles, and fish-hooks. 
 
 Over the greater part of Gloucestershire, and especially in the 
 Cotswold Hills, there was much spinning of wool. The trade in 
 the fine broad-cloths of Stroud and the surrounding parishes was in 
 1794 at a stand-still ; but in the coarser quaUty required for army 
 clothing it was brisk. Even here the introduction of machinery 
 " has thrown many hands out of employment," and caused the poor- 
 rates to rise " to six shillings in the pound and upward." At 
 Cirencester in 1807 many labouring people were stiU employed in 
 sorting wool from the fleece ; but the wool trade had much decreased 
 in the last forty years, as also spinning woollen yam and worsted 
 since the introduction of machinery. Tewkesbury had its stocking- 
 frame industry ; Dursley and Wotton-under-Edge made wire cards 
 for the use of clothiers ; iron and brass wire, tin-plate, pins, rugs 
 and blankets employed other districts of the county. But the 
 decline of trade made itself felt in the great increase of rates. " In 
 the clothing district," says Rudge, " the weight of parochial assess- 
 ments f aDs uncommonly heavy on landed property. During the late 
 scarcity, the average charge might be 4s. 6d. through the county ; 
 while at the same time it amoimted to at least three times that 
 proportion in some of the parishes where the clothing manufacture 
 is carried on." ^ In Somersetshire, the teade iu woollen cloth and 
 worsted stockings of Frome and Shepton Mallet had given employ- 
 ment, not only to the two towns, but to " a vast number of the lower 
 order of people in the adjacent villages." But in 1797 the restriction 
 of the export trade by the war, the introduction of machinery, and 
 the competition of the North, had begun to injure the trade and 
 lessen the demand for labour. Taunton had lost its woollen 
 manufactures, though they still flourished at Wellington and 
 Wiveliscombe. 
 
 In Cornwall, carding and spinning were in 1811 dying out, and 
 " to the total decline of this business must, in some measure, be attri- 
 buted the progressive increase of the rates of the county." * From 
 Devonshire in 1808 came the same complaint of the failure of em- 
 
 ^ OUmcesteriihire (1807), p. 346. 
 ' Worgan's ComvxiU (1811), p. 33, 
 
312 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 ployment, though in the eastern part of the county lace-making still 
 flourished.^ In Dorsetshire the principal manufactures were in the 
 neighbourhood of Bridport and Beaminster, where in 1793, " all 
 sorts of twine, string, packthread, netting, cordage, and ropes are 
 made, from the finest thread used by saddlers, in lieu of silk, to 
 the cable which holds the first-rate man of war." ' In this neigh- 
 bourhood also were made the sails for shipping, sacking for ham- 
 mocks, and all kinds of ba^ and tarpaulin. Here too were braided 
 nets for the Newfoundland fishery and for home use. At Loders 
 sail-cloth was woven. At Shaftesbury and Blandford, and in the 
 surrounding villages on all sides, to seven or eight miles distance, 
 was carried on the manufacture of shirt-buttons. 
 
 Two other changes were in progress which in a minor degree 
 added to the misfortunes of the labouring classes in country districts. 
 In the first place, trade in agricultural produce was rapidly becoming 
 wholesale instead of retail. Dairy-farms contracted for the supply 
 of milk to towns, and milk was more easily obtained by the urban 
 than the rural population. The produce of corn-farms was sold in 
 bulk to corn-dealers or millers. Labourers could rarely purchase a 
 bushel of wheat direct from the farmer. They could no longer 
 carry their com to the miller, pay for grinding, and take away the 
 pure flour, and the ofials for the pigs. Now they were obliged to buy 
 from the miller or the baker, not only the flour, but the bran, with 
 the profits of each trader added to the price of both. In the second 
 place, a number of crops, some of which required much labour for 
 their cultivation or special preparation, were dying out, because 
 the industries which they served had migrated, or from some change 
 of taste or fashion. As the linen trade became more concentrated 
 in particular localities, flax was more rarely cultivated. The hemp- 
 yards, which were once attached to many cottages and farm-houses, 
 were similarly abandoned. The use of teasels by clothieis was 
 displaced by machinery, and the crop was no longer cultivated. 
 Woad, madder, and safEron found cheaper substitutes. Liquorice 
 disappeared from Nottinghamshire, camomile from Derbyshire, 
 canary seed from Kent, carraway seed from Essex. 
 
 The rapid increase in the price of provisions from 1793 onwards 
 struck yet another, and a crushing, blow at the position of the land- 
 less labourer. The rise came with startling suddenness, and it 
 
 1 Vanoouver'B Devonthire (1808), p. 464. 
 * Claridge'B Doraetthire (1793), p. 37. 
 
RISE IN AGRICULTURAL WAGES 313 
 
 found him defenceless. Without the commons he was entirely 
 dependent on purchased food ; without domestic industries he had 
 less money to buy the means of existence. The greater the distance 
 from London, the lower the wages and the higher the prices. This 
 was certainly true of the West and South- West of England. Thus, 
 the labourer had more to buy, less money to buy it with, and what 
 money he had did not go so far as formerly. In yet another way, 
 the great rise in prices afiected the rural population for the worse. 
 It no longer paid the farmer to board servants in husbandry. In the 
 North, the system still survived, partly because of the high wages of 
 day-labour, partly because the diet which custom accepted was more 
 economical, and barley-broth and porridge were staple foods. 
 Elsewhere the number of servants who were boarded and lodged 
 in farm-houses dwindled ; they became day-labourers, living how 
 and where they could. Another opportunity for saving and another 
 restraint on improvident marriage were thus removed. 
 
 To a certain extent the rise in the prices was met by a substantial 
 advance in wages. It is always easy to raise wages ; it is extremely 
 difficult to lower them. The reluctance of farmers to increase wages, 
 when an advance in prices may be only temporary, is therefore 
 intelligible. How far wages rose is a difficult field of enquiry. The 
 remuneration of labour varies with the diSerent seasons, with the 
 different occupations of the men, with diSerent contracts of service, 
 with different districts of the same county. The one outstanding 
 point is that the real earnings of agricultural labourers are not now, 
 and, to a greater extent, were not then, represented only by the 
 weekly sums which are paid in cash. To these weekly payments 
 must be' added earnings at piece-work, at hay and com harvest, 
 perquisites, allowances in kind, cottages and gardens, either rent 
 free or rented below their economic value. On these points the 
 Reports to the Board of Agriculture, 1793-1815, supply no reliable 
 evidence. Most of them speak of a considerable rise in wages ; 
 they rarely mention the point from which the advance is 
 measured. They register the averages of the daily or weekly 
 payments ; they seldom give the method by which the rate is 
 calculated. 
 
 Failing the Reports to the Board of Agriculture, the enquirer is 
 thrown back on Young's generaUsations. As the result of his 
 calculations in the Farmers' Tours of 1767-70, it may be estimated 
 that the average rate of wages was Is. 2d. a day, — more in the 
 
314 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 
 
 neighbourhood of London, less in more distant counties, least in the 
 West and South. Prom 1770 to 1790 there does not seem to have 
 been any appreciable and general rise. Li the next twenty-five 
 years a striking advance was made. Tooke states that agricultural 
 wages were " doubled or nearly so." ^ Young calculated that, 
 taking the " mean rate " of wages in 1770 at 7s. 4Jd., the " price 
 of labour had in forty years about doubled."^ Both he and 
 Tooke state that the wages of agricultural labourers had reached 
 the level of those of artisans. It is difficult to accept these 
 estimates. Few of the Reports to the Board of Agriculture 
 really belong to the later part of the period 1793-1815, and the 
 only county in which the Reporters to the Board state that wages 
 had doubled between 1794 and 1812 is Warwickshire. In Essex, 
 however, there is some indication of wages having doubled, if the 
 Is. 2d. of 1770 is taken as the starting-point. In the Report for 
 1794, the average of summer and winter wages is given as 9s. l|d. a 
 week; in that for 1807, at 12s. 7d. The evidence of the subsequent 
 rise comes from another source. On an Essex farm the rate of 
 wages paid to an ordinary labourer, who had not the care of stock, 
 rose from 10s. 6d. a week in 1800 to 12s. a week in 1802, and to 15b. 
 a week in 1812.^ Whatever weight may be attached to the general- 
 isations of Tooke and Young, it is certain that a very important 
 advance in agricultural wages was made during the period of the 
 Napoleonic wars. Unfortunately, it is equally certain that, even 
 
 * History of Priees, voL i. p. 329. 
 
 * Enquiry into the Rise of Priees in Europe during the last twenty-five years 
 (1816), p. 216. 
 
 * Board of Trade Report on Agrioulitural Wages (1900), Cd. 346, p. 238. In 
 the Oommunications to the Board of Agriculture (vol. v. part i.), the average 
 weekly wages of agriculturtil labourers in 1803 are stated at lis. lid. In 
 Arthur Young's Enquiry into the Rise of Prices in Europe, the weekly wages in 
 husbcmdry are stated to be 148. 6d. in 181 1. J. C. Curwen, M.F., moving in the 
 House of Commons for a Committee to consider the Poor Laws (May 28, 
 1816), speaks of agricultural wages at that time as ranging from 10s. to 16s. 
 (PompWeteer, vol. viii. p. 9). A. H. Holdsworth, M.P. (Letter on the Present 
 Situation of the Oountry (1816), Pamphleteer, voL viii. p. 428), speaks of agri- 
 cultural labourers receiving 2s. 6d. a day before the reductions of 1814. William 
 Clarkson (Irupnry into the Poor Rates ( 1816), Pamphleteer, vol. viii. p. 392) gives 
 the average rate of wages in 1812 at 16s. ; but thinks that as wages are much 
 lees in Wiltshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, this figure is over-stated as an 
 average. 
 
 It is not suggested that this class of evidence is at all conclusive ; but it 
 leaves the impression that, if agricultural wages in 1760 averaged 7b., they had 
 approximately doubled in 1812 in many parts of the country, sad that the 
 average rise cannot be put at less than two-thirds. 
 
IF WAGES DOUBLED, POOD-PRICES TREBLED 315 
 
 if wages had doubled, the price of provisions had trebled. In other 
 words, effective earnings had diminished by a third. It is the 
 suddenness of this advance in prices that explains, though it does 
 not justify, the makeshift expedients for relief which were adopted 
 by administrators of the Poor Law. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND THE POOR LAW. 
 
 1813-37. 
 
 War taxation : peace and beggary ; slow recovery of agriculture ; the harveat 
 of 1813 ; reaUty and extent of distress ; the fall of prices ; bankruptcies 
 of tenant-farmers ; period of acute depression, 1814-36 ; ruin of small 
 owners ; misery of agricultural labourers ; reduction in wages and scarcity 
 of employment ; allowances from the rates ; general pauperisation : the 
 new Poor Law, 1834, tmd its administration. 
 
 ENQLA2TD in 1815 had emerged from the Napoleonic wars victorious. 
 But she paid the price of victory in her huge National Debt, her 
 excessive taxation, her enormous Poor-Rate, her fictitious credit, 
 her mass of unemployed and discontented labour. Though it is 
 estimated that one in every six male adults was engaged in the 
 struggle by land or sea, the population of England and Wales had 
 risen from under 8f millions in 1792 to about 10| millions in 1815. 
 Within the same period the National Debt grew from £261,735,059 
 to £885,186,323, and the annual expenditure, including interest 
 on the public debt, from under 20 miUions to £106,832,260.^ The 
 wealth and resources of the nation are shown by the comparative 
 ease with which the money was found and the increased burden met. 
 Yet the strain of the struggle had been intense, and on no class had 
 it told more severely than on agricultural labourers. If their 
 wages had approximately doubled, the cost of living had nearly 
 trebled. Of their distress the rise of the expenditure on poor-relief 
 afiords evidence. It advanced from £1,912,241,^ which was the 
 
 » Porter's Progress of the Nation (1847), p. 482. 
 
 > Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. pp. 363-72. In 1776 the expenditure had 
 been £1,656,804. After 1786 no Returns were made till 1803, when poor-rates 
 stood at £4,077,891. See Load Taxation Returns printed by order of the House 
 of Commons, 1839. To the sums assessed and disbursed in relief of the poor 
 must be added the annual sums derived from charities appropriated to the 
 same object. These amoimted, apart from educational charities, to £1,209,396 
 
PEACE AND BEGGARY 317 
 
 triennial average for 1783-4-5, to £6,418,845 in 1815. Nor did the 
 expenditure cease to rise with the close of the war. It continued 
 to increase, in spite of falling prices. In 1818 it had grown to 
 £7,870,801, the highest point which it reached under the old law.^ 
 
 For six years after the end of the war the proverbial association 
 of " Peace and Plenty " proved a ghsistly mockery to aU classes of 
 the community. To agriculturists peace brought only beggary. In 
 the first rush of complaint, some allowance must be made for dis- 
 appointment at the immediate results of the end of the war. But 
 the evidence of commercial depression was real and widespread. 
 The disordered state of the currency continued to injure credit, to 
 disturb trade, to create wild speculation instead of sound business. 
 The labour market was glutted. Discharged sailors, soldiers, and 
 miUtiamen swelled the ranks of the imemployed. The store, 
 transport, and commissariat departments were put on a peace 
 footing. Industries to which the war had given a feverish activity 
 languished. Thousands of spinners, combers, and hand-loom 
 weavers were thrown out of work by the increased introduction of 
 machinery into manufacturing processes. Continental ports were 
 once more opened to English trade ; but money was scarce, and 
 foreign merchandise excluded by heavy customs duties. It was soon 
 found that home manufactures had exceeded the demand. Ware- 
 houses were overloaded, markets overstocked. Produce was unsold, . 
 or unpaid for, or bought at prices unremunerative to the producers. 
 Only with America was increased business done. The growing 
 imports of raw cotton were paid for by exports of British goods. 
 
 After 1821 the commercial depression began to disperse. Difficul- 
 ties of the currency had been, to some extent, adjusted ; credit and 
 confidence were reviving. Progress was for a time suspended by 
 the financial crash of 1825. But the interruption was temporary. 
 Trade improved, at first slowly, then rapidly. Agriculture recovered 
 more gradually ; for a protracted period it endured an almost 
 unexampled misery. Landlords, tenant-farmers, and labourers 
 suffered together. It was not till 1836 that any gleam of returning 
 
 12s. 8d. a year. [See Report of the GharUy Oomimiaaioners, 1842.) No estimate 
 can be formed of the additional smns annually contributed by the charitable. 
 The great increase in the Poor Rate cannot be wholly attributed to an increase 
 in the number of paupeis. It was largely due to the greater cost of provisions 
 and to more lax administration. See Appendix H. 
 
 1 NichoU'a History of the Poor Law, ed. H. G. Willink (1898), voL ii. p. 165, 
 and Porter's Progress of the Nation (ed. 1847), p. 627. 
 
318 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 prosperity appeared. Duiing the war, farming improvements had 
 been stimulated by the prospect of increased profits. In peace, when 
 once the new conditions were accepted, and some degree of confidence 
 restored, adversity proved an efficient goad. Without improved 
 practices there was no prospect of any profits at all. Yet down to 
 the accession of Queen Victoria there is no substantial progress to 
 chronicle. The characteristics of the period are a great loss of 
 ground and a partial recovery. 
 
 The inflated prices of the war had conferred, from one point of 
 view, a great advantage on the agriculture of the coimtry. They 
 brought under the plough districts which, but for their stimulus, 
 might never have been brought into cultivation, — areas that were 
 forced into productiveness by the sheer weight of the metal that was 
 poured into them. Money made by farming had been eagerly 
 reinvested in the improvement of the land. For the same purpose 
 banks had advanced money to occupiers on the security of crops 
 and stock which every year seemed to rise in value. Farmers had 
 been able to meet their engagements out of loans, and wait their own 
 time for realising their produce. Better horses were kept, better 
 cattle and sheep bred. Land was hmed, marled, or manured. 
 Wastes were brought under cultivation ; large areas were cleared 
 of stones in order to give an arable surface ; heaths were cleared, 
 bogs drained, buildings erected, roads constructed. The histoiy of 
 Northumberland strongly illustrates these brighter aspects of a 
 gloomy period. John Grey of Dilston,^ " the Black Prince of the 
 North," one of the most enterprising and skilful agriculturists of the 
 day, played a conspicuous part in the transformation of his county. 
 Bom in 1785, and early called through the death of his father to the 
 management of property, he hved in the midst of the agricultural 
 revolution. When his father first settled in Glendale, the plain was 
 a forest of wild broom. He took his axe, and, like a backwoodsman, 
 cleared a space on which to begin his farming operations. The 
 country was then wholly unenclosed, without roads or signposts. 
 Cattle were lost for days in the broom forests. The inhabitants 
 were as wild as their home, — ^the Cheviot herdsmen " ferocious and 
 sullen," the rural population " uneducated, ill-clothed, and barbar- 
 ous." But the character of the soil was such as to attract skill and 
 industry. Men of the same stamp as Grey, or the Culleys, settled 
 in the fertile vales, and by their spirited fanning transformed into 
 > Memoirs of John Qrey of DUaton, by Josephine E. Butler (1869). 
 
RAPID FALL IN PRICES 319 
 
 cultivated land wide districts, like the rich valley of the Till, which 
 before the period of war prices were wildernesses of underwood. 
 
 Between 1813 and the accession of Queen Victoria falls one of the 
 blackest periods of English farming. Prosperity no longer stimu- 
 lated progress. Except in a few districts, falling prices, dwindling 
 rents, vanishing profits did not even rouse the energy of despair. 
 The growing demoralisation of both employers and employed, which 
 resulted from the administration of the Poor Law, crushed the 
 spirit of agriculturists. " Many horses die while the grass is grow- 
 ing." The men who survived the struggle were rarely the old 
 owners or the old occupiers. They were rather their fortimate 
 successors who entered on the business of land-cultivation on more 
 favourable terms. Prices had begun to fall with the abundant 
 harvest of 1813. The suddenness of the decline is illustrated from 
 the contracts made on behalf of the Royal Navy. At Portsmouth 
 in January, 1813, the price paid for wheat was 123s. lOd., in Novem- 
 ber, 67s. lOd. In February, 1813, at Deptford, flour was contracted 
 for at 100s. 3d. per sack, in November, at 65s.^ This rapid fall 
 could not at that time have been due to any prospect of peace. 
 It was rather due to over-production, which the House of Commons 
 Committee on the Com Trade (1814) found to have increased within 
 the last ten years by a fourth. Besides English com, Scottish and 
 Irish com were in the market. Since 1806 Irish grain had been 
 admitted into the country free, and it poured into the western 
 counties in considerable quantities. Deficient harvests in 1809-10- 
 11-12 had concealed the potential yield of the incres/sed area under 
 com ; its full productive power stood revealed by the favourable 
 season of 1813. The two following harvests, 1814 and 1815, were 
 not above the average ; but prices of wheat dropped to 74s. 4d. 
 and 65s. 7d. per quarter respectively. As compared with 1812, 
 the actual receipts of farmers diminished by one hundred millions, 
 and the value of the farming stock was reduced by nearly one- 
 half. The evidence of widespread distress is ample.* But it is 
 
 * Speech of Chas. C Western, M.P., on moving that the House shotUd resolve 
 itself into a Committee of the Whole House to take into Consideration the Dis- 
 tressed State of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom, March 7, 1816 (Parn^h- 
 leteer, vol. vii. p. 608). 
 
 ' E.g. 1. A Review of the present Ruined Condition of the Landed and Agri- 
 cultural Interests, etc., by R. Preston, M.P. (1813). 
 
 2. Letters on the Distressed State of Agriculturists, by R. Brown (1816). 
 
 3. Further Observations on the State of the Nation, etc., by B. Preston, M.F. 
 
 (1816). 
 
320 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 improbable that its extent was understated. Agricultural witnesses 
 and writers were anxious, not only to prevent any relaxation of the 
 Com Laws, but, if possible, to increase their stringency. The 
 depression, therefore, " lost nothing in the telling," though its depth 
 and reaUty remain imquestionable. Brougham, speaking on 
 agricultural distress in the House of Commons, April 9, 1816, said : 
 " There is one branch of the argument which I shaU pass over 
 altogether, I mean the amount of the distresses which are now 
 universally admitted to prevail over almost every part of the Empire. 
 Upon this topic all men are agreed ; the statements concerning it 
 are as unquestionable as they are afSicting . . . and the petition 
 from Cambridgeshire presented at an early part of this evening, has 
 laid before you a fact, to which all the former expositions of distress 
 a£Eorded no parallel, that in one parish, every proprietor, and tenant 
 being ruined with a single exception, the whole poor-rates of the 
 parish, thus wholly inhabited by paupers, are now paid by an 
 individual whose fortime, once ample, is thus swept entirely 
 away." ^ 
 
 With wheat standing at over 60s. a quarter, it is difficult to realise 
 that the landed interests could be distressed, and it might be supposed 
 that farmers had made enough in prosperous times to tide over a 
 period of depression. But though the rise in prices had been enor- 
 
 4. On the Stale of the Country in December 1816, by the Bt. Hon. Sir John 
 
 Sinclair (1816). 
 6. AgrioiUtural State of the Kingdom in February, March, and April, 1816. 
 
 Being the Svbatcmce of the Replies to a Circidar Letter sent by the Board of 
 
 AgriouUvre (1816). 
 
 6. An Inquiry into the Causes of AgricultiwrcA Distress, by W. Jacob, F.R.S. 
 
 (1817). 
 
 7. Observationa on ihe Present State of Patuperism in England, by the Bev. 
 George Glover (1817). 
 
 8. Speech of J. C. Curwen, M.P., in the House of Commons on May 28th, 
 
 1816, on a Motion for a Committee to take into Consideration the State of 
 the Poor Laws (1816). 
 
 9. Two Letters on the Present Situation of the CourUry, by A. H. Holdsworth, 
 M.P. (1816). 
 
 10. Letters on the Present State of the AgriouMwral Interest, by the Bev. Dr. 
 
 Crombie (1816). 
 
 11. On Famine and the Poor Laws, by W. Bichcurdson, D.D. (1816). 
 
 12. An Inquiry into Pauperism and Poor Bates, by William Clarkson (1816). 
 
 13. Observations . . . on the Condition of the Lc^iotiring Classes, by John 
 Barton (1817). 
 
 14. Inquiry into the Causes of the Progressive Depreciation of Agricutfural 
 
 Labour, by the Same (1820). 
 
 * " Speech on Agricultural Distress." Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, 
 vol. i. pp. 603-4 (1838). 
 
HEAVY TAXATION OF LAND 321 
 
 mous, the increase in pnblic burdens had more than kept pace. 
 During the ten years ending in 1792, the average price of wheat had 
 been 47s. per quarter ; the national expenditure under twenty 
 millions a year ; the poor-rate less than If millions ; there was also 
 no propertiy tax. During the ten years ending in 1812, wheat 
 averaged 88s. a quarter. While wheat had thus not quite doubled, 
 wages had risen by two-thirds ; the national expenditure had 
 mnltipUed five-fold ; tithes had increased by more than a fourth ; 
 a property tax had been imposed on owners and occupiers of land. 
 The poor-rate had quadrupled ; the county-rate had risen seven- 
 fold ; the permissive charge of 6d. in the pound for the road material 
 of highways had been of late years habitually levied. A very lai^e 
 proportion of this public burden was borne by agriculturists. Upon 
 the landed interests fell more than half the new property tax,' 
 the greater part of the county-, poor-, and highway-rates, the war 
 duties on hops and malting barley, the tax on agricultural horses, 
 and an exceptional share of the tax on leather, which swelled the 
 cost of every kind of harness gear. Thus the rise of the price of 
 agricultural produce was to a great extent discounted by the growth 
 of taxation, and it was the war, not the Com Laws, which had given 
 agricultural producers the monopoly of home markets. 
 
 In other respects circumstances were exceptional. During the 
 war, the social advantages of landownership and its apparently 
 remunerative character, as well as the large fortunes realised in 
 recent trade, combined to give land a fancy value. New capitalists 
 gratified both their ambitions and their speculative instincts by 
 
 'The Property Tax for 1814 produced Gross £16,326,720, and Net 
 £14,646,279. It was made up thus : 
 
 Sched. A (lands, tenements and hereditaments) £4,297,247 
 
 Sched. B (occupiers of land) - - - 2,176,228 
 
 Tax on houses ... . 1,626,939 
 
 Total - - - £8,099,414 
 
 Sched. C, Funded property .... £3,004,861 
 
 Sched. D, Profits on Trades and Professions - 3,021,187 
 Sched. E, Naval, military, and civil lists 
 
 together with provincial offices . . 1,113,244 
 
 Total . - - - £7,139,292 
 
 Supplementary account v duties, penalties, etc. 87,014 
 
 Total £16,326,720 
 
 This tax was repealed in 1816. The number of agricultural occupiers 
 contributing to the property tax under Sched. B was 474,696, as against 
 162,926 assessed under Sched. D. 
 
 X 
 
322 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 becoming purchasers. Their biddings forced existing owners into 
 ruinous competition ; they mortgaged their ancestral acres to buy 
 up outlying properties or round oS their boundaries. As much as 
 forty-five years' purchase was given for purely agricultural land. 
 The same spirit of competition prompted farmers to ofEer extravagant 
 rents for land. Farms were put up to auction, and the tenancy fell 
 to the highest bidder. The more prudent had left business in 1806. 
 Many of the new men entered on their holdings with insufficient or 
 borrowed capital. Money was still made in farming ; but, instead 
 of being realised, it was put back into the land, where, so long as 
 prices rose, or were even maintained, it proved a profitable invest- 
 ment. Among all classes, including landowners and farmers, a 
 higher standard of fiving prevailed. Country mansions had been 
 built, rebuilt, or enlarged, and costly improvements effected in the 
 equipment of farms, — often by means of loans ; heavy jointures 
 and portions had been charged on estates ; farmers and their wives 
 had either altered their simpler habits, or brought with them into 
 their new business more luxurious modes of life. The whole fabric 
 rested on the continuance of the war-prices. When these began to 
 fall, the crash came. Profits were reduced by a haU ; burdens 
 remained the same. Tenants-at-wiU could at least quit their hold- 
 ings. But tenants occupying under long leases found themselves 
 in a difficult position. Landlords could not meet their habilities, 
 unless their rents were maintained ; without reductions of rent, the 
 bankruptcy of their tenants seemed inevitable. 
 
 In the period 1814-16 the agricultural industry passed suddenly 
 from prosperity to extreme depression. At first farmers met their 
 engagements out of capital. When that was exhausted, their only 
 resource was to sell their com as soon as it was threshed, or their 
 stock, for what it would fetch. The great quantity of grain thus 
 thrown on the market ia a limited time lowered prices for producers, 
 and the subsequent advance, which benefited only the dealers, 
 suggested to landlords that no reductions of rent were necessary. 
 Farms were thrown up ; notices to quit poured in ; numbers of 
 tenants absconded. Large tracts of land were untenanted and 
 often uncultivated. In 1815 three thousand acres ia a small district 
 of Huntingdonshire were abandoned, and nineteen farms in the Isle 
 of Ely were without tenants. Bankers pressed for their advances, 
 landlords for their rents, tithe-owners for their tithe, tax-collectors 
 for their taxes, tradesmen for their bills. Insolvencies, composi- 
 
RUIN OF MANY FARMERS 323 
 
 tions, execntions, seizures, arrests and imprisonments for debt 
 multiplied. Farmhouses were fuU of sheriffs' officers. Many large 
 farmers lost everything, and became applicants for pauper allowances. 
 Even in Norfolk the number of writs and executions rose from 636 
 in 1814 to 844 in 1815 ; in Suffolk from 430 to 850 ; in Worcester 
 from 640 to 890. In the Isle of Ely the number of arrests and 
 executions increased from 57 in 1812-13 to 263 in 1814-15. In the 
 same district several farmers failed for an aggregate sum of £72,500, 
 and the creditors in hardly any instance received a dividend. 
 Between 1815 and 1820, 52 farmers, cultivating between them 24,000 
 acres, failed in Dorsetshire. Agricultural improvements were at 
 a stand-stall. Live-stock was reduced to a TniTiinrnTn Lime-kilns 
 ceased to bum ; less manure was used on the land ; the least possible 
 amount of labour was employed. The tradesmen, innkeepers, and 
 shopkeepers of country towns suffered heavily by the loss of custom. 
 Blacksmiths, wheelwrights, collar makers, harness makers, carpenters, 
 found no work. At first the depression had been chiefly felt in 
 corn-growing districts, especially on heavy land. But by 1816 it 
 had spread to mixed and grass farms. In that year, bad seasons 
 created a temporary scarcity ; the rise of wheat to the old prices 
 aggravated rural distress without helping any persons except dealers, 
 and the wealthier farmers who could afford to wait; the potato 
 crop, which had recently become important in England, failed ; 
 perpetual floods in the spring and summer were succeeded by a 
 winter of such unusual severity, that the loss of sheep in the North 
 was enormous. Landlords, whose land was thrown upon their 
 hands, or who had laid charges on their estates, found themselves 
 confronted with ruin. The alternative was hard. If the mortgagee 
 foreclosed, the estate sold for a sum which barely recouped the 
 charges. Preston,^ in 1816, states that " in Norfolk alone landed 
 property to the value of one million and a half is on sale, without 
 buyers for want of money." One property, for which " £140,000 
 was offered two years ago, is now on sale at £80,000." In a second 
 pamphlet ' he states that " some of the best estates of the kingdom 
 are selling at a depreciation of £50 per cent. One of the finest grass 
 farms in Somersetshire sold lately at 10 years purchase." " There 
 
 ' Beview of the Present Ruined Condition of the AgriciJltunii and Landed 
 imereats, by Richard Preston, M.P. (1816), {Pamphleteer, vol. vii. pp. 149, 
 167). 
 
 ■ Further Observations on the State of the Nation (1816), {Panvphieteer, voL 
 ix. p. 127.) 
 
324 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 are now estates," says Glover,^ " in the most fertile parts of England, 
 nay even within 60 miles of London, which are an absolute loss 
 to the possessor." The natural reluctance of landlords to lower 
 rents may have involved tenants in their fall ; but by 1816 
 they are stated to have lost 9 millions a year by rent reductions 
 alone.* 
 
 For the next twenty years the same record of depression is con- 
 tinued. The attention of Parliament was continually called to 
 the distress of the landed interests. Petitions covered the table of 
 the House ; innumerable pamphlets and letters demanded remunera- 
 ting prices for agricultural produce. Some exaggeration there 
 probably was, for the struggle of Free Trade against Protection had 
 begun. But the account which has been given of farming conditions 
 in the years 1814-16 was substantially confirmed by numerous 
 witnesses who gave evidence on the continuance of the distress 
 before a series of Select Committees in 1820, 1821, 1822, 1833, and 
 1836. Rural conditions were deplorable. Even as late as 1833, it 
 was stated that, in spite of rent reductions, which in Sussex amotmted 
 to 53 per cent., there was scarcely a solvent tenant in the Wealds of 
 Sussex and Kent, and that many fanners, having lost all they had, 
 were working on the roads. Violent fluctuations in prices con- 
 tinued to overthrow all calculations ; the wheat area alternately 
 expanded and contracted ; the sliding scale of 1829, soon exploited 
 for their own profit by foreign importers, only increased the specu- 
 lative character of the agricultural industry. On heavy clays less 
 capital and less labour were expended ; wet seasons prevented 
 
 ' Observations on the Present State of Pa/uperism in England, by the Bev. G. 
 Glover {Pamphleteer, vol. x. p. 384). 
 
 * If this statement is correct, it approximately restored the rental of land in 
 Great Britain to the figure at which it stood in 1806. In that year a sub- 
 division for the first time was made of the classes of property the income of 
 which was assessed under Schedule A to the Property Tax. 
 At^ti iih.! Income from 
 
 1. Property from Lands - 
 
 2. Property from Houses - 
 
 3. Amount of Tithes 
 
 4. Profits from Manors 
 6. Fines on Leases . ■ - - 
 
 6. Profits of Quarries 
 
 7. Profits of Mines . . - - 
 
 8. Profits of Iron Works 
 
 9. General Profits, etc. 
 
 1806 
 
 1814 
 
 £29,834.484 
 
 £39.406.706 
 
 11.913.613 
 
 16.269.399 
 
 2.012,064 
 
 2.732.898 
 
 43,621 
 
 71.672 
 
 72.602 
 
 216.646 
 
 32,466 
 
 70.378 
 
 363.863 
 
 678.786 
 
 84,616 
 
 647,686 
 
 477.762 
 
 66,260 
 
 £44,834,770 
 
 £60,148,330 
 
DISTRESS, DISCONTENT, AND DISTURBANCES 326 
 
 fanners from getting on the land, and caused the discontinuance 
 of manure, excessive cropping, and the impoverishment, even the 
 abandonment, of the heavier soils. To add to the difficulties of 
 clay farmers, the rot of 1830-1, which is described as the most 
 disastrous on record, " swept away two million sheep." Every- 
 where wages were lowered and men dismissed. Work became 
 so scarce that, in spite of the fall of prices, starvation stared the 
 agricultural labourer in the face. Distress bred discontent, and 
 discontent disturbances, which were fostered by political agitation. 
 While the Luddites broke up machinery, gangs of rural labourers 
 destroyed threshing machines, or avenged the fancied conspiracy 
 of farmers by burning farm-houses, stacks, and ricks, or wrecking 
 the shops of butchers and bakers. In the riots of 1830-31, when 
 " Swing " and his proselytes were at work, agrarian fires blazed 
 from Dorsetshire to Lincolnshire. 
 
 The evidence before the Select Committee of 1836 shows that 
 prosperity was beginning to revive. But the long period of 
 depression left its permanent mark on the relations of landlord 
 and tenant, as well as on the conditions of rural society. It was 
 not merely that progress had been lost, or that much of the land 
 was impoverished, or that farm buildings fell into ruinous con- 
 dition. A great expenditure was needed to reorganise the industry, 
 and it was the owner of the land who found the money. Necessity 
 compelled landed proprietors to realise their position. Tenants 
 had little capital left ; they were also more cautious of risks. 
 Recent experience had created a profound distrust of long leases. 
 Without security of tenure for a prolonged term of years, no man 
 of ordinary prudence would make an outlay on the costly works 
 which his predecessors had eagerly undertaken. It was now that 
 the distinction becomes clearly marked between landlord's and 
 tenant's improvements. Even in the latter class, it was already 
 evident that, where the benefits were not exhausted at the expira- 
 tion of the tenancy, compensation was payable, and that local 
 customs afforded insufficient protection. On these new lines agri- 
 culture once more began to advance. At the accession of Queen 
 Victoria the worst of the crisis was over. Rents had been adjusted 
 to changed conditions. The industry had been relieved from some 
 of the exceptional taxation. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 
 had removed a great obstacle to progress. The new Poor Law of 
 1834 reduced the burden of the rates, and began to re-establish the 
 
326 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 self-respect of the labourer.* The rapid growth of the manufac- 
 turing population not only created an increasing demand for 
 agricultural produce, but relieved the glut of the labour-market. 
 
 To small freeholders, whether gentry, yeoman-farmers, or 
 peasant proprietors, the Napoleonic war, with its crushing load of 
 taxation and subsequent collapse of prices, had been fatal. The 
 evidence before the Agricultural Committee of 1833 proves that 
 some still held their own in every county. But it was in the first 
 thirty years of the nineteenth century that their numbers dwindled 
 most rapidly. Some had consulted their pecuniary interests by 
 selling their land at fancy prices, which they took into business. 
 Others sold and embarked their capital as tenant-farmers in hiring 
 larger areas of land, on which they could take fuller advantage of 
 the price of com. Those who remained on their own estates were 
 for the most part ruined. Many had raised mortgages to buy 
 more land, or to improve their properties, or to put their children 
 out in the world. Prices fell ; but the private debt, as well as the 
 pubUc burdens, remained. The struggle was brief ; farming 
 deteriorated ; buildings fell out of repair ; creditors pressed ; 
 finally the estate was sold. Even where land was free from charges, 
 owners could not stand up against the burden of poor-rates, which 
 was most crushing to those who employed no labour but their own. 
 " That respectable class of English yeomanry," writes Glover* in 
 1817, " whose fathers from generation to generation have lived on 
 the same spot and cultivated the same farms are now rapidly 
 dwindling into poverty and decay, sinking themselves into the 
 class of paupers." The purchasers were not men of their own 
 class. After 1812 small capitalists no longer invested their savings 
 in land. Their place as buyers was taken by large landowners or 
 successful traders. In Yorkshire the number of small proprietors 
 was dwindling ; formerly, if one freeholder went, another took his 
 place ; but this had now ceased to be the case. The same report 
 is made of Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Wiltshire. In Kent 
 and Somersetshire it is stated that, though many freeholders 
 retained their land, it was only by the practice of the most rigorous 
 self-denial and by entirely ceasing to employ labour. Throughout 
 
 ' In 1837 the expenditure dropped to the lowest point as yet recorded in the 
 century, £4,044,741. 
 
 ' ObservaUona on the Preaent State of Pawperitm, etc. {Pamphleteer, vol. x. 
 p. 386). 
 
ALLOWANCES IN AH) OP WAGES 327 
 
 the country, it is evident that most of the small landowners, who, 
 in addition to taxes and rates, had to pay annuities or interest on 
 mortgages, were forced to sell their properties. Everywhere large 
 estates were bmit up on the ruin of small proprietors. 
 
 Morally, if not materially, no class suffered more from the pro- 
 longed period of depression than agricultural labourers. They 
 had bitter reason to deplore the shortsighted humanity which in 
 the last twenty years of the eighteenth century had swept away 
 the old barriers against pauperism.^ Where Gilbert's Act had been 
 adopted, every man was now secure of employment from the 
 parish or, in any case, of maintenance. In every parish, also, 
 outdoor relief for the able-bodied poor was now compulsory on the 
 overseers. Already in some districts men out of regular work 
 were " on the Rounds," offering their labour from house to house, 
 paid, if employed, partly by the householder, partly by the parish, 
 and if unemployed, wholly by the parish. Even men in full employ- 
 ment were drawn within the net. When iu 1795-6 the price of 
 provisions rose to famine height, wages were supplemented by 
 allowances from the rates. A scale of these allowances was pro- 
 claimed by the Berkshire magistrates, proportioned to the price 
 of bread and the size of families. From the wages of the unmarried 
 labourer, which were zero, the scale ascended, varying with fluctua- 
 tions in the cost of the quartern loaf and the number of the children 
 of the married labourer. Similar scales of allowances were adopted 
 in many other counties. Thus able-bodied men, whether in or out 
 of work, became dependent on the rates. That, from the first, 
 these allowances delayed the natural rise of wages, lowered earnings 
 by making the needs of immarried men the most important factor, 
 and encouraged improvident marriages, is certain. But these evils 
 were held in check till 1813. So long as the war and the high prices 
 continued, the demand for labour was brisk ; distress was prac- 
 tically confined to those who suffered from enclosures, or from the 
 decline of local industries other than the cultivation of the land. 
 Agricultural wages rose substantially ; employment increased owing 
 to the extension of tillage ; even the high prices of provisions affected 
 labourers less than might have been expected, since the provisions, 
 in several parts of the country, were suppUed to them at a lower 
 cost than the market rates. Except for winter unemployment the 
 allowance system was sparingly used. But during the depression 
 • See Appendix II. The Poor Law. 
 
328 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 farmeiB were driven to economise in their labour bills. Wages 
 were greatly reduced or even ceased altogether. The replies to 
 the Circular Letter of the Board of Agriculture insist on the deplor- 
 able scarcity of employment. Preston^ speaks of the daily 
 increase in the number of paupers, and of " a large part of the 
 community ... in want of employment though willing to labour." 
 " At no period in the memory of man," writes Jacob,* " has there 
 been so great a portion of industrious agricultural labourers 
 absolutely destitute as at the present moment." It was now that 
 the Poor Law was most perniciously relaxed ; now also that the 
 demoralising system of allowances became the most conspicuous 
 feature in its administration. 
 
 The immediate effects of the depressed condition of agriculture 
 was a great reduction in the rates of wages, and in the demand for 
 permanent labour. Unless the farmer could lessen his costs of 
 production, he was rapidly sinking into bankruptcy. The Poor 
 Law, as it was administered in 1813-34, in two ways came to his 
 assistance. It enabled bim to reduce wages to the lowest possible 
 point, because it made good the deficiency out of allowances from 
 the rates. Men discharged as supernumeraries were taken on again 
 as soon as they were on the poor-book. It also provided him with 
 an inexhaustible supply of cheap and temporary labour. Bound 
 to defray the whole cost of maintaining the able-bodied poor, the 
 parish gladly accepted any payment, however small, in part relief 
 of their Uability. It became almost impossible for a farmer to 
 keep a man in permanent employment at reasonable wages. If 
 he did, he was only saving the rates for neighbours, who put their 
 hands into his pockets to pay their labour biUs. Sometimes the 
 ratepayers in the parish arranged among themselves to employ 
 and pay a number of men proportionate to the rateable value of 
 their property. Sometimes the parish agreed with employers to 
 sell the labour of so many paupers at a given sum, and paid the 
 men the difference between the agreed price and the scale allowance 
 awarded to them according to the cost of bread and the number 
 of their children. Sometimes the paupers were paraded by the 
 overseers on a Monday morning, and the week's labour of each 
 
 1 Review of the Present Rvined Condition, etc., by R. Preaton, M.P. (1816), 
 (ParrvpMieteer, vol. vii. p. 129). 
 
 * Inquiry into the Owisea of the AgnouHtwral Diatreaa, by W. Jacob, F.R.S. 
 (1817), {PampKkteer, vol x. p. 411). 
 
DEMORALISATION OF LABOUR 329 
 
 individnal was offered at auction to the highest bidder. Sometimes 
 the parish contracted for the execution of a piece of work at a given 
 sum, and performed it by pauper labour, paying the men according 
 to the allowance scale. If men were still unemployed, they were 
 formed into gangs under overseers, occupied in more or less unpro- 
 ductive work ; it was among these men that the riots of 1830-1 
 are said to have originated.^ 
 
 Against the mass of subsidised labour, free labourers could not 
 hope to compete. It was so cheap that men who tried to retain 
 their independence were undersold. Those who had saved money 
 or bought a cottage, could not be placed on the poor-book ; they 
 were obliged to strip themselves bare, and become paupers, before 
 they could get employment. Every agency that could promote 
 the spread of pauperism seemed brought into play. The demoralisa- 
 tion gradually extended from the southern counties to the North. 
 In the most practical fashion, labourers were taught the lessons 
 that improvidence paid better than thrift ; that their rewards did 
 not depend on their own exertions ; that sobriety and efficiency 
 had no special value above indolence and vice. All alike had the 
 same right to be maintained at the ratepayers' cost. Prudence 
 and seK-restraint were penalised. The careful were unemployed, 
 the careless supported by the parish ; the more recklessly a man 
 married and begot children, the greater his share of the comforts 
 of life. The effect was seen in the rapid growth of population. 
 Among unmarried women morality was discouraged, and un- 
 chastity subsidised. The more illegitimate children, the larger the 
 allowance from the parish ; at Swaffham a woman with five illegi- 
 timate children was in receipt of 18s. a week. The demoralisation 
 was BO complete that it threatened to overthrow the whole social 
 fabric. Voluntary pauperism became a profession, and a paying 
 one. Recipients considered themselves as much entitled to parish 
 allowances as they would have been to wages that they had earned 
 by their industry. A generation was springing up which knew 
 no source of income but poor relief. When once the spirit of 
 independence and self-respect was numbed, and the instincts of 
 parental responsibility and fiUal obhgation were weakened, a 
 paui>er's life, with its security of subsistence, its light labour, its 
 opportunities of idleness, had attractions for the vicious and easy- 
 
 * For these varieties of the Labour Bate, the Roundsmen and Parish Em- 
 ployment, see the Report on the Poor Laws (1834), pp. 42, 31-32, 36. 
 
330 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 
 
 going. Riots were not always protests against the existing system ; 
 they were sometimes means of enforcing its continuance, and 
 parochial allowances were maintained by the establishment of a 
 reign of terror, by threats, violence, and incendiarism.^ 
 
 Rural conditions were fast becoming intolerable. Fortunately, 
 there still remained a leaven of agricultural labourers who resented 
 pauper dependence as a curse and a disgrace. Fortunately, many 
 farmers were learning by experience that cheap labour was bad 
 labour, and that quantity was no efficient substitute for quality. 
 Fortunately, also, there were districts which a wiser administration 
 of the Poor Law had rescued from the general demoralisation. In 
 four parishes, Southwell, Bingham, Uley, and Llangattock, the 
 principle had been adopted, with marked success, of refusing reUef 
 to the able-bodied, except in well-regulated workhouses. Some 
 sixty others had been practically depauperised (e.g. Welwyn, Leck- 
 hampstead, and Carlisle) by stopping allowances, and exacting 
 hard work, at low pay, under strict supervision, as a condition of 
 parish reUef. On the other hand, the parish of Cholesbury in 
 Buckinghamshire afforded the typical illustration of the extreme 
 consequences to which the existing system was necessarily leading. 
 Out of 98 persons, who had a settlement in the parish, 64 were in 
 receipt of poor relief, and the rates exceeded 24s. in the pound. 
 Only 16 acres remained in cultivation. When able-bodied paupers 
 were offered land, they refused it on the ground that they preferred 
 their present position. The parish was only able to exist by means 
 of rates-in-aid levied on other parishes in the hundred. Similar 
 conditions prevailed elsewhere. It was evident that the fund 
 from which the rates were provided must become exhausted. 
 Rents were already disappearing. The Poor Law had destroyed 
 the confidence of tenants, deteriorated the moral character of the 
 labourer, forced large areas out of cultivation, driven capital to 
 seek investment everywhere but in land. A drastic remedy was 
 needed. In 1832 a Commission of Inquiry was appointed to examine 
 into existing conditions, and suggest the lines of legislative reform. 
 On the recommendations of this Commission was based the Act 
 of 1834 " for the Amendment and better Administration of the 
 Laws relative to the Poor in England and Wales." A central 
 authority was constituted to regulate local administration. The 
 
 » Extracts from, the Information received by H.M. Commitsionerg as to .. .the 
 Poor Laws (1833), p. 3. 
 
THE POOR LAW OF 1834 331 
 
 orders issued by the new authority proceeded on the main principle 
 of restoring the old Poor Law, without the relaxations which the 
 legislation and practice of George m. had introduced. The 
 workhouse test for the able-bodied was revived. If a man chose 
 to depend for subsistence on the parish rates, instead of on his 
 own resources, he was obliged to enter the workhouse and submit 
 to its regulations. Out-door relief for the able-bodied was dis- 
 couraged, and allowances in add of wages were prohibited. At the 
 same time the laws of settlement were modified, in order that 
 labour might become more mobile and more easily transferable in 
 obedience to the laws of demand and supply. The effect of these 
 and other changes was soon manifest. Expenditure upon poor 
 relief feU from £7,036,968 in 1832 to £4,044,741 in 1837. Wages 
 rose, though for many years they remained miserably low. Land- 
 owners again poured their capital into the land ; farmers regained 
 confidence ; agricultural progress was resumed. The evidence laid 
 before the Select Committee of 1836 proves that signs of returning 
 prosperity were beginning to appear, and that the distress waa now 
 practically confined to clay land. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 TTTHES. 
 
 The incidence of tithes under the old law ; the historical origin of tithes ; 
 a free-will offering ; a customary payment ; the appeal to conscience ; 
 ecclesiastical penalties for non-payment ; a legal liability : tithes as 
 parochial endowments ; the Reformation ; the collection of tithes in 
 kind unpopular, and expensive to tithe-owners ; substituted forms of 
 payment ; the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 ; its object and machinery. 
 
 A SBBions obstacle to the progress or recovery of agriculture was 
 presented by the incidence of tithe upon the produce of the land. 
 Tithe-owners were sleeping partners in the cultivation of the soil. 
 They contributed neither capital nor labour to the enterprise of the 
 farm ; they risked nothing in the venture. But they shared the 
 profits derived from increased productiveness. While agriculture 
 remained stationary, the burden was light. As soon as farming 
 began to advance, and to demand a greater outlay, the grievance 
 was acutely felt. In times of prosperity the incidence on produce 
 discouraged improvement. In days of adversity, when every penny 
 was important to struggling agriculturists, it retarded recovery. 
 
 Since the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836, much of the ancient 
 law of tithes has retained only an antiquarian interest. But the 
 long history of the payment has left an indelible mark on rural life. 
 
 Historically, tithes were a tenth part, taken yearly, of all produce 
 of the land, of the stock nourished upon the land, and of the clear 
 profits of the personal industry of tradesmen, artificers, miUers, 
 and fishermen. In other words, tithes were, as lawyers distinguished 
 them by their sources, predial, mixed, or personal. Predial tithes 
 were derived directly from the soil, such as com, hay, beans, peas, 
 turnips, hemp, flax, saffron, rushes, fruits, and wood of various 
 kinds. Mixed tithes arose from the increase or produce of animals 
 maintained by the fruits of the earth, as of cattle, sheep, pigs, 
 poultry or their eggs, wool, milk or cheese. Personal tithes on the 
 
ORIGINALLY A FREE-WILL OFFERING 333 
 
 clear gain of the labour of man had early fallen into disuse. Manu- 
 facturers were never Uable for the payment, which only survived in 
 such forms as a tenth of the fisherman's catch, or a tenth of the 
 miller's clear profits on meal ground in all but ancient mills. 
 Another classification, distinguished between great and small tithes 
 according to the nature of the produce on which they fell. Thus 
 great or rectorial tithes iacluded com, beans, peas, hay, and wood ; 
 all the other predial tithes, together with all mixed tithes, were 
 small or vicarial. 
 
 The legal obligation to pay tithes, as distinct from the older moral 
 duty of giving them, dates back to a remote period of history. No 
 real dispute arises respecting their origin, until the point is reached 
 where the offering passed from a free-will gift into a liability enforced 
 by l^al penalties. From the fourth century onwards, throughout 
 the Christian world, the practice of dedicating fractional parts of 
 produce to religious objects was recognised by the faithful as a moral 
 duty. As a matter of conscience, the gift was enjoined by Councils 
 of the Western Church, and enforced by appeals to the rewards 
 and punishments of religion. Thus the practice gradually acquired 
 something of the binding force of custom. The final stage was 
 reached when the State recognised as a civil duty the religious 
 practice of giving tithes, and compelled payment, not by appeals to 
 conscience, nor even by spiritual penalties, but by temporal sanctions. 
 This last step, by which tithes passed from moral obligations into 
 legal habihties, was taken at different dates by the different countries 
 of Christian Europe. 
 
 Before the landing of Augustine in England (597), and before the 
 introduction of Christianity into this country, the moral duty of 
 giving tithes had been enjoined on the Continent by at least one 
 Church Council. As a matter of conscience, therefore, the first 
 missionaries to Anglo-Saxon England preached the consecration of 
 a tenth of produce to the service of God, and as a religious custom 
 the practice was established by their successors among their Chris- 
 tian followers. The appeal was the more forcible since it came 
 from men who were beUeved to hold the keys of heaven and of hell. 
 But there were as yet no divisions into parishes, no parish churches, 
 no parochial clergy, and no parochial endowments. The cathedral, 
 monastery, and "mother church," generally conventual, of the local- 
 ity, were mission centres, from which radiated itinerant missioners, 
 who preached under rude crosses the rudiments of Christianity 
 
334 TITHES 
 
 to the inhabitants of outlying districts. Into the hands of the 
 Bishop or monastic bodies were paid all the ofEerings of the faithful. 
 The married clergy, outside the cloister, were slowly and with 
 difficulty obtained. They were for the most part ignorant, uncouth 
 men, recruited from the lower classes of native converts, entrusted 
 only with the humbler offices of the ministry. They taught the 
 Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in remote hamlets, watched 
 by the bedsides of dying penitents, and in special cases administered 
 the rites of baptism. It is not strange that, on earth at least, their 
 lowly labours should have been ignored or forgotten. Very different 
 was the fate of the monastic bodies. To them fell power, riches, 
 credit. Kings were their nursing-fathers, queens their nursing] 
 mothers ; the wealthy nobles vied with one another in the munifi- 
 cence of their endowments. In comparison with existing civilisation, 
 the monastic bodies attained a standard of wealth, refinement and 
 culture which was at least as high as that of later times. They laid 
 acre to acre, and field to field. For miles round their farms, bams, 
 flocks, herds, fish-ponds, and dovecotes dotted the country. They 
 entranced the senses by the beauty of their architecture, their 
 music, their ritual ; they commanded respect by their learning ; 
 they inspired awe by the austerities of their lives. They alone 
 could offer an inviolable resting-place for the dead, since there were 
 no parochial burial-grounds, and they practically monopolised 
 rights of sepulture. Thus in death, as well as in life, they appealed 
 irresistibly to the favour of the world. 
 
 Till the closing period of the Anglo-Saxon Church, there were, 
 as has been said, no resident parochial clergy. Ecclesiastical 
 organisation proceeded downwards, not upwards. It was provincial, 
 diocesan, conventual, before it became local and parochial. The 
 cathedrals of the dioceses and the conventual churches of the 
 monasteries at first provided for the religious wants of the people. 
 Yet the material was ready for the introduction of the parochial 
 system. Townships suggested the necessary divisions, and village 
 communities, on the self-sufficing system of these agrairian societies, 
 had probably been accustomed to provide for their pagan priests. 
 From the first the rulers of the Church felt the need of continuous 
 local ministrations, though, probably, the earliest advances towards 
 a parochial system were forced upon the country by external causes. 
 From the ninth century onwards Danish invasions struck a series 
 of staggering blows at the monastic organisation. Monasteries 
 
ORIGIN OF PAROCHIAL ORGANISATIONS 335 
 
 were the first objects of the invaders' attack ; their wealth and their 
 defencelessness made them an easy, as well as a tempting, prey. 
 They were sacked, pillaged, burned, and their inmates either dis- 
 persed or massacred. To save rural Christianity from extinction 
 by a relapse into paganism it became necessary to encourage local 
 efforts, to favour the erection of private chapels, to enlarge the 
 powers of the rural priests or chaplains by whom they were served, 
 even to consecrate as burial-grounds the precincts in which they 
 stood. Thus a permanent resident clergy began to grow up on 
 the rural estates of great nobles in connection with private chapels 
 and oratories. With the gradual extension of this local provision 
 for permanent religious ministrations begins the increased importance 
 attached to the payment of tithes as parochial endowments. 
 
 Early documents confirm this explanation of the growth of 
 parochial tithes. On the one side, the Church, backed by all her 
 supposed power over the destinies of man, urged the consecration 
 of tenths to the service of God. On the other hand, the earthly 
 influence of the Crown, sometimes by royal admonitions, coupled 
 with threats of loss of favour, sometimes by attesting and confirm- 
 ing the decrees of synods, sometimes even by treaties of peace with 
 the Danes, supported the demand of the Church, and assisted in 
 making the custom of paying tithes universal. Under this double 
 pressure the practice grew. But it was not tiU 944 that King 
 Edmund's synod at London for the first time made non-payment of 
 tithes an ecclesiastical offence to be punished by excommunication. 
 Henceforward the Chtuxih claimed as an ecclesiastical right what she 
 had hitherto received, if at all, as a free-will offering. The moral 
 duty had become a religious obligation, enforced by spiritual 
 
 The payment of tithes was not yet a legal liabilii^, enforced by 
 temporal sanctions. Nor were tithes, or any part of them, as yet, 
 ecclesiastically or l^ally, appropriated as parochial endowments. 
 But the times were ripening for both changes. Volimtary dedica- 
 tions of free-wiU offerings had been acted upon by the religious 
 bodies to whom they had been made. On the faith of their con- 
 tinuance cathedrals had been erected and a diocesan system 
 established ; monasteries had been founded ; manorial churches 
 had been built and some local provision made for their service : 
 the dim outline of a future parochial system could be discerned. 
 By these voluntary dedications the original donors had alienated 
 
336 TITHES 
 
 portions of their own property. K neither appeals to conscience 
 nor threats of excommunication sufBced to obtain payment, the 
 State might not unreasonably be asked to enforce it as a legal 
 liability, either against the original donors or against their repre- 
 sentatives who had inherited estates already subject to the dedica- 
 tion of the consecrated portion. 
 
 In the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, during the primacy of Dunstan, 
 the payment of tithes was made a legal Uability, universal in its 
 application. At the same time a step was taken towards the 
 appropriation of a portion to the maintenance of district churches 
 of a particular class. At Andover, in 970, the Tring and his Witen- 
 agemot issued an ecclesiastical ordinance, which was to all intents 
 and purposes an Act of Parliament. The ordinance creates no tithes. 
 On the contrary it presupposes their existence. It regulates the 
 times when they were to be paid, and makes their payment a legal 
 liability, enforced by a pecuniary penalty and a power of distraint. 
 It does not profess to give them to the clergy. The first article 
 ran as follows : — " That God's churches be entitled to every right ; 
 and that every tithe be rendered to the old minster, to which the 
 district belongs ; and be then so paid, both from a thane's Mand (i.e. 
 land granted in the lord's own hands), and from geneat-land {i.e. 
 land granted out for services), so as the plough traverses it." Un- 
 doubtedly, the law not only protects the Church in the possession 
 of tithes already dedicated, but transforms the moral duty, religious 
 custom, and ecclesiastical obligation into a legal liability. A 
 reason is suggested by the passages which regulate their division. 
 The general right of the " old minster," the mother church of the 
 district — ^whether collegiate or conventual — to the local tithes was 
 recognised. But an exception was allowed. If any landowner had 
 built on his private estate a church with a burial-place attached, 
 he was to assign to its support one-third of the local tithes. The 
 remaining two-thirds were to be paid to the " mother church." 
 If the landowner had built on his estate a church or oratory without 
 a burial-place, the local tithes went to the " mother church," and 
 he might provide privately for the priest of his private chapel. In 
 other words, the old diocesan and monastic system still remained in 
 force ; but, side by side with it, had grown up manorial churches, 
 providing " shrift districts " with burial-grounds, and therefore 
 claiming some more permanent support than the caprice of the 
 builder or of his successors. They were not yet parish churches ; 
 
CONSECRATION OF PARISH CHURCHES 337 
 
 but they were their original type, and in the private chapela or 
 " field churches " of the greater landowners are seen the germs of a 
 further extension of a parochial system. 
 
 The law of Edgar remained unaltered at the Conquest. Practically 
 re-enacted by Canute and by Edward the Confessor, it was accepted 
 by WiUiam the Conqueror. As years passed, district or parochial 
 churches were multipUed by their voluntary founders ia various 
 parts of the country. Some were built by kings or great nobles as 
 private chapels ; some by bishops, some by monastic houses, some 
 by landowners, some by freemen on the landowners' estates. 
 Church-building proceeded on no general system, and without any 
 uniformity of date. There was a gradual growth under var3dng 
 circumstances ; but the people, acting through the legislature in a 
 national capacity, neither built, nor endowed, nor repaired these 
 churches. As with the buildings, so with the endowments. They 
 were gradually appropriated to particular churches, in different 
 proportions, without either system or uniformity. No priest serving 
 a district could enforce any claim to local tithes, except for the third 
 which was appropriated only to churches with burial-grounds. 
 Though the payment had become a legal Uabihty, the dedication of 
 tithes to particular parochial uses is, therefore, still unexplained. 
 Something more remained to be done. The final steps were taken 
 between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. 
 
 The chief instrument by which local endowments were secured 
 to parish churches was consecration. A founder desired to build a 
 church on his estate, and to have it consecrated. But the bishop 
 could refuse to consecrate, unless proper provision was made for its 
 maintenance. Between the bishop and the founder, who ia building 
 the church was a free agent, there might be bargaining. There 
 might also be opposition from outside. The neighbouring monastery 
 perhaps resented the intrusion of a new church and a new priest 
 into the field which it had regarded as its own. But at no stage, 
 either in the bargain or in the opposition, does the national will 
 express itself. Throughout, the founder was at first practically 
 master of the situation. There was no compulsion on him to build 
 a church at all. If he did, not only did he himself nominate and 
 invest the priest, with or without the consent of the bishop, but he 
 could delay appointing to vacancies, and thus leave the church 
 without services. Even where local endowment had been secured 
 to the parochial church at consecration, the system was thus in- 
 
 T 
 
338 TITHES 
 
 complete. Both points were settled by ecclesiastical discipline at 
 the close of the twelfth century, The necessity for institution by 
 the bishop was established, and the bishop's right to appoint to 
 vacant benefices, after a certain period of delay, was vindicated. 
 
 A further step was stUl required. The legal habihty for the 
 payment of tithes was satisfied it, with the exception of the third 
 secured to the parochial churches which possessed burial-grounds, 
 payment was made to any ecclesiastical body. A patron might 
 increase the pittances of the poor priests at his door, or offer it to 
 the collegiate cathedral, or heap the grain in the bam of a monastery, 
 or sell the tithes issuing from his estate to any reUgious body that 
 he chose, or even, by collusion, store the com in the granaries of 
 himself or his lay friends. Even after the formation of parishes 
 had become general, and after the claim of parochial churches was 
 commonly recognised, it was stUl possible, and still usual, to grant 
 the local tithes to distant houses of rehgion. The same causes were 
 at work which in Anglo-Saxon times sacrificed the secular clergy 
 to the monasteries. Norman landlords preferred to assign their 
 tithes to monastic bodies, with whom they were more in sympathy 
 than with the native priests of rural districts. The increase of 
 monasticism after the Conquest necessarily aUenated a large part 
 of the local tithes which naturally would have increased the local 
 provision for religious services. This option on the part of land- 
 owners is inconsistent with the theory of the endowment of parishes 
 by an exercise of the national will, expressed in some general law. 
 It was not tUl the thirteenth century, and then not by any statute 
 or Act of ParHament, but by the growth of custom, that the land- 
 owner's freedom of choice was limited. No doubt the growth of 
 the custom was aided by the practice of such specific dedications 
 of tithes to the parochial church as those of Hay and Exhall. At 
 common law the courts presumed that the parish church was 
 primd facie entitled to the tithes which issued from the lands of the 
 parish. By this presumption the burden of proof was thrown on 
 tithe-payers or other claimants to show that the local tithes had 
 been either paid to some collegiate or conventual body for so long 
 a period as to create a prescriptive right, or had been by express 
 grant aUenated to some other religious body. 
 
 It was to custom that the parochial clergy appealed ; other 
 claimants rehed on immemorial usage or express grant. This fact 
 is in itself of extreme importance. Had any enactment of the 
 
TITHES AS PAROCHIAL ENDOWMENTS 339 
 
 national assembly established the primd facie right of the parochial 
 clergy to the tithes of the parish, they would have relied, not on 
 custom, but on statute. If, as parochial endowments, tithes were 
 statutory in their origin, we should expect to find that they commence 
 with the legislation by which they are alleged to be created, and 
 that the payment was certain in practice, uniform in amount, 
 identical in source. If, on the other hand, the endowment of parish 
 churches with tithes originated in a series of voluntary dedications, 
 and if the State merely protected a property which was none the 
 less real because it began as a free-will offering, we should expect 
 to find that customary payments preceded any recorded legislation, 
 and were uncertain in practice, varying in amount, irregular in 
 source. Historical facts confirm the second view. The volimtary 
 payment of tithes in this country preceded, by upwards of three 
 centuries, parochial organisation, as well as both ecclesiastical and 
 secular legislation. The first secular enactment on the subject 
 assumes the prior existence of the charge, and for more than two 
 centuries afterwards allows tithe-payers a wide freedom in the 
 choice of the religious body to which payment was made. When 
 this freedom was limited, it was restricted not by legislation but 
 by the growth of custom. Both in respect of the persons to whom 
 tithes were due, and of the produce on which they were payable, 
 the practice was not certain, but uncertain. The amount paid was 
 varying, not uniform. The sources from which the payment Was 
 derived, are not identical, but irregular. If, therefore, the State 
 endowed parochial churches with tithes, all those signs, which 
 would naturally accompany such a national act, are conspicuously 
 absent. On the other hand, all those signs, which naturally 
 indicate the legislative protection of customary practices, ate con- 
 conspicuously present. 
 
 The gradual, piecemeal, and discretionary endowment of parochial 
 churches with the tithes of the parish has left its mark on the 
 existing organisation. It explains, for instance, as no other assump- 
 tion can explain, the freedom from the payment which the " Hall," 
 " Court," or " Manor " farm frequently enjoyed ; it lies at the root 
 of the distinction between rectorial and vicarial tithes, and between 
 ecclesiastical appropriators and lay impropriators ; it suggests the 
 reason why land in one parish should be charged with tithes for the 
 benefit of the church of another parish. Many of the old anomalies 
 in the law of tithes have been smoothed into comparative uniformity 
 
340 TITHES 
 
 by the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. But the previous history 
 of the charge renders it di£S.cult to believe that the nation ever by a 
 legislative action endowed parochial churches with the local tithes. 
 
 The Bicformation left the parochial organisation untouched. But 
 it made an important change, which greatly embittered objections to 
 the payment of tithes. It ahenated a considerable portion of the 
 tithes from religious uses. Rectories, together with the local tithes, 
 might be, and often had been, " appropriated " to a monastery or 
 other reUgious corporation, which appointed vicars to discharge the 
 religious duties attached to the endowment. Originally the stipend 
 of the vicar was arbitrary. But gradually it was recognised that 
 the person responsible for reUgious ministrations in the parish ought 
 to have some fixed determinate means of support. This was gener- 
 ally made by endowing the vicarage with land, or by assigning to 
 it some portion of the great tithes, or the whole of the small tithes, 
 or by a combination of all three methods. At the Dissolution of 
 the Monasteries all the rectorial tithes in their possession, which 
 had not been already allocated to the support of vicarages, passed 
 into the hands of the Crown, and were subsequently granted out 
 by letters patent to lay subjects. These lay grantees were called 
 " lay rectors," or " impropriators," in order to distinguish them from 
 the original " appropriators," who were of necessity spiritual persons 
 or ecclesiastical corporations. When the Tithe Commutation Act 
 was passed in 1836, and tithes of produce were commuted into rent- 
 charges, it was found that nearly one-fourth of the annual value 
 had thus been diverted from religious purposes into the hands of 
 laymen.^ There is strong evidence that the lay impropriators or 
 their lessees, who were generally absentees, and without other 
 interests in the parish, exacted their legal dues with a strictness 
 which was relatively rare among clerical tithe-owners. 
 
 Tithes in themselves, and apart from their incidence, could scarcely 
 be regarded as a legitimate grievance by either owners or occupiers of 
 land, especially as no attack was as yet made on the religious objects 
 to which they were devoted. No landlords could honestly believe 
 
 ' The net annual value of the tithes, after a deduction of 40 per cent, from 
 the gross value, was in 1836 estimated at £4,063,986 6s. S^d. Of this total 
 sum £962,289 15s. were then in the hands of lay impiopiiators. But this 
 figure does not take into accotmt the large amount of lay tithes which had 
 been, in the coiuse of three centuries, extinguished by purchases on the part 
 of landowners, or bought and given back to the parochial clergy, or restored 
 by those who, like Spelman, considered their retention by laymen a sacrilege. 
 
TITHES IN KIND 341 
 
 that the payment robbed thenx of any part of the rents to which 
 they were justly entitled. For centiuies, in every transfer of land, 
 whether by purchase or inheritance, the estimated value of tithes 
 had been previously deducted from the value of the estate so bought 
 or inherited. Nor could any tenant honestly complain that tithes 
 increased the burden of his rent. Land only commands what it is 
 worth. If 100 acres of land fetched £1 per acre, it made no pecuniary 
 di£Eerence to the farmer whether he paid £100 to the landowner or 
 £90 to the landowner and £10 to the tithe-owner. But the real prac- 
 tical grievance was the incidence of the charge upon the produce of 
 the land. In this way tithes become a charge which was increased by 
 good farming, or diminished by bad, — a tax on every additional outlay 
 of money and labour, — a check upon enterprise and improvement. 
 
 Tithes in kind were admittedly out of date. Though rents and 
 wages had long been placed on a money basis, a tithe-owner could 
 still exact pajrment in the ancient fashion. As a fact, however, 
 the Reports to the Board of Agriculture (1793-1815) prove that, at 
 the close of the eighteenth century, comparatively httle tithe was 
 collected in kind. Especially was this the case when the tithe was 
 in the hands of clerical owners. For this change of practice there 
 were many reasons. Collection in kind was extremely unpopular. 
 Where it prevailed, farmers showed their dishke to the system in 
 various ways. Many tenants so greatly resented putting money 
 into the pockets of tithe-owners that they preferred to lose it them- 
 selves, and refused to plough up pastures which would have been 
 more profitable under tillage. Sometimes the tenant left his tith- 
 able land unmanured. A Hertfordshire farmer, for instance, 
 occupied land in two parishes, in one of which a reasonable composi- 
 tion was paid, while, in the other, tithe was collected in kind. The 
 result was that he farmed one part of his occupation with spirit on 
 improved methods, and that the dung-cart never reached the other 
 portion of his land. Sometimes the tenants made the collection as 
 inconvenient as possible. Thus a Hampshire farmer gave notice 
 to the tithe-owner that he was about to draw a field of turnips. 
 When the tithe-owner's servants, horses and waggons had come on 
 the land, the farmer drew ten turnips, gave one to the tithing-man, 
 and said that he would let his master know when he drew any more. 
 In a wet season the collection was often the cause of heavy loss. 
 Notice had to be given to the tithe-owner to set out the tithe. 
 Farmers risked a lawsuit, if they carried their crops before the 
 
342 TITHES 
 
 process was completed. Consequently, in catchy seasons the rain 
 often outstripped the slow progress of the titbing-man, and the 
 crops were ruined. 
 
 The collection of tithes in kind, regulated as it was by the subtle 
 and technical distinctions of case-made law, provoked endless bicker- 
 ings, disputes and Utigation. If tithe-owners were clergymen, 
 living in their parishes, they naturally welcomed any reasonable 
 system of payment which enabled them to live on friendly terms 
 with their parishoners. Non-resident pluralists, or lay impropriators 
 who let out the tithes to proctors, could better afford to defy the 
 public opinion of the neighbourhood. But they were not always 
 proof against business arguments. The heavy cost of collecting 
 tithes in kind suggested the conunercial prudence of adopting other 
 arrangements. Bams must be built and repaired for the storage of 
 produce. The weekly wages of servants must be met. Waggons and 
 horses, with the necessary cart-sheds and stabling must be provided 
 and maintained. The cost, not only of collecting, but of threshing, 
 dressing and marketing com had to be met. The net profits of a 
 crop were thus reduced to a TniniTniini by the duphcation of expenses. 
 Various forms of payment were therefore substituted for collection 
 in kind. Sometimes, and especially under enclosures of open fields, 
 tithes were extinguished by allotments of land of equivalent value. 
 Sometimes it was considered that the increase of the area of land 
 held in mortmain or the difficult position of clerical landowners 
 were objections to the exchange of tithes for their equivalent in 
 landed property, and a corn-rent was substituted. Sometimes 
 tithes were commuted for a composition calculated on the acre or 
 on the pound of rent paid, and either fixed for a term of years or 
 based on an annual estimate of the value of the crops. Sometimes 
 farmers had the option of taking the tithable portion at the sur- 
 veyor's valuation or leaving it to be collected by the tithe-owner. 
 Sometimes, in a few fortunate parishes, a modus had by immemorial 
 usage taken the place of tithes. Moduses were payments of definite 
 sums, which had been permanently fixed in amount at a time when 
 the purchasing power of money had been far greater than it had 
 since become. They were, therefore, advantageous to the tithe- 
 payer. A modus of Id. on every fleece shorn in the parish was no 
 real equivalent to a tenth of the value of the wool.^ 
 
 1 For various methods of collecting tithes in the different counties 1793- 
 1816, see Appendix VII. 
 
THE BARREN LANDS ACT 343 
 
 No variety in forms of payment conld entirely remove the reason- 
 able objection to a tithe of produce in kind. So long as farming 
 remained stagnant the grievance was imperceptible. It became 
 acute when progressive methods of agriculture were generally 
 adopted. Here and there tithe-owners recognised the altered con- 
 ditions by allowing deductions from their tithes to meet the cost of 
 all purchased manures. But the practice was by no means general. 
 The fair adjustment of compositions was in other wajre extremely 
 difScult. Tithable crops were of greater value to farmers, who 
 could collect and market them at a small additional expense, than 
 they were to tithe-owners, whose necessary outlay diminished their 
 net profits by a half. The difference allowed a large margin for 
 dispute. Even when compositions were reasonable, they tithed 
 the increased produce of improved husbandry. Land, highly 
 cultivated, might be valued at 3s. 6d. an acre ; soil of the same natural 
 quality, under slovenly management, might escape with Is. 6d. In 
 the case of waates, the objection to tithes on produce was strongly 
 felt as an obstacle to improvement. When land, which at the best 
 had afforded only rough pasture, was reduced to cultivation, owners 
 and occupiers risked labour and money on a venture which might 
 succeed or fail. In either event tithe-owners were safe ; they 
 profited by the success, and lost nothing by the failure. The legis- 
 lature had endeavoured to meet the case. Under the Barren Lands 
 Act,^ barren heaths and waste grounds were exempted from tithes 
 for seven years after they had been reduced for the first time to 
 cultivation. But the decisions of the law courts deprived improvers 
 of the benefits which they expected from the Act. Only land which 
 was so barren that it paid no tithe by reason of its barrenness was 
 held to be exempt. The initial cost of draining fen-lands, or grub- 
 bing and stubbing wood-lands, or of paring and burning moors and 
 heaths was not to be taken into consideration. Whatever the cost 
 at which the land had been fitted for cultivation, the only question 
 to be aaked was whether, when ploughed and sown, it was so naturally 
 fertile as to produce a crop, or so naturally barren that it would yield 
 nothing without an extraordinary expenditure on liming, chalking, 
 marling, dunging, or manuring. Only in the latter case could the 
 seven years' exemption be legally claimed. 
 
 The law of tithes needed complete revision. Its inadequacy to 
 meet changed conditions had long been felt. The necessity for a 
 I 2 and 3 Ed. VI. c. 13. 
 
344 TITHES 
 
 large expenditure of capital in order to recover the ground which 
 had been lost during a long period of disaster forced the question to 
 the front. In 1836 the difficulty was solved. Peel in 1835 had 
 proposed the voluntary commutation of tithe. Lord John Brussell, 
 adopting in his Bill the machinery which Peel had sketched, made 
 commutation compulsory. When once this point was decided, 
 party considerations were for the moment subordinated : Whig 
 and Tory loyally co-operated to frame a workable scheme. The 
 aim of legislators was to commute tithe of produce in kind for a 
 variable money payment charged on the land, to make the commuted 
 sum fluctuate with the purchasing power of money, to preserve the 
 existing relations between the values of tithable produce and the 
 cost of Uving. It never attempted to fix the payment, once and for 
 all, at the sum which represented the value that tithe then possessed. 
 On the contrary, it converted tithes into a corn-rent, fluctuating in 
 value according to the septennial average of the prices of wheat, 
 barley and oats. 
 
 The first step was to determine the value of the tithes ; the second 
 to adjust the purchasing power of the money payment at which 
 they were commuted. 
 
 Within a limited time tithe-owners and tithe-payers of any 
 parish might agree upon the total sum to be paid ia lieu of tithes. 
 This agreement was first to receive the assent of the patron ; 
 secondly, to be communicated to the bishop ; and, thirdly, to be 
 approved and ratified by the Commissioners. If no agreement was 
 arrived at, a local enquiry was held on the spot by the Commissioners 
 or their assistants, who estimated the value of the tithe, taking as 
 their basis the actual receipts of the tithe-owner during the preceding 
 seven years ; framed their draft award ; deposited it for the in- 
 spection of interested parties ; and, finally, confirmed their award, 
 which from that time was binding upon tithe-owners and tithe- 
 payers. 
 
 The mode in which the purchasing power of money was intended 
 to be preserved was as follows. The average of the gross annual 
 value of the actual receipts of the tithe-owner was ascertained in 
 money for the seven preceding years. The net annual value, 
 arrived at by deducting all just expenses, was taken as the permanent 
 commutation of the great and small tithes of the parish. This net 
 sum was divided into three equal parts, and the average value for 
 the seven years ending with 1835 was taken for wheat, barley and 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF COMMUTATION 345 
 
 oats. It wafi then asked how many bushels of wheat could be 
 bought at cost price by one of these equal portions, how many of 
 barley by the second, how many of oats by the third. Each £100 
 of tithe was divided into three equal sums of £33 6s. 8d. ; the 
 septennial averages for the three grains were respectively 7s. OJd. 
 for a bushel of wheat ; 3s. lljd. for a bushel of barley ; 2s. 9d. for 
 a bushel of oats. In 1836 at those prices £33 6s. 8d. bought 9496 
 bushels of wheat, or 16842 bushels of barley, or 242*42 bushels of 
 oats. These have been the fixed multipliers in use ever since. 
 Each year the average prices for the last seven years are multiplied 
 by these fixed quantities, and the result is the tithe rent charge for 
 the coming year. It wiU be noticed that the charge is affected 
 most by variations in the price of oats, and least by those of wheat. 
 One other point requires to be mentioned. Lord Althorp in 1833, 
 Sir Hobert Peel in 1835, Lord John RusseU in 1836 were agreed that 
 the payment should be transferred from occupiers to owners of land. 
 Section 80 of the Act of 1836 empowered tenants to deduct the rent- 
 charge from the rent payable to the landlord. But the section was 
 permissive only. For mutual convenience tenants paid the rent 
 charge direct to the tithe-owner, and their other rent to the landlord 
 was calculated on this basis. By the Tithe Hent Charge Recovery 
 Act of 1891 the tenant was no longer permitted to be the conduit- 
 pipe for the payment. The liability to pay the tithe rent charge 
 was transferred to the landowner ; the tithe-owner's remedy of 
 distress was altered into a process through the coimty court ; and, 
 instead of the com averages absolutely determining the amount 
 of tithe rent charges, provision was made in certain cases for a 
 reduced payment when the charge exceeded a certain proportion of 
 the annual value of the land. 
 
CHAPTER XVIL 
 HIGH FARMING. 1837-1874. 
 
 Condition of agriculture in 1837 ; current explanation of the distress ; pre- 
 paration for a new start in farming ; legislative changes ; development of 
 a railway system ; live-stock in 1837 ; the generaj level of farming ; 
 foundation of the Boyal Agricultural Society ; notable improvements, 
 1837-74 ; extension of drainage ; purchase of feeding stufis ; discovery 
 of artificial fertilisers ; mechanical improvements and inventions ; Repeal 
 of the Com Laws ; the golden age from 1853 to the end of 1862 ; rapid 
 progress in the " Fifties " ; pedigree mania in stock-breeding. 
 
 The reign of Queen Victoria began in the midst of a transition stage 
 from one state of social and industrial development to another. 
 A complete change of agricultural front was taking place, which 
 necessitated some displacement of the classes that had previously 
 occupied or cultivated the soil. The last ten years of the present 
 century have raised the question whether agriculturists are not now 
 passing through another transition stage which, like its predecessor, 
 may effect another agricultural revolution and result in another 
 disruption of rural society. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the first thirty-seven years of the new reign 
 formed an era of advancing prosperity and progress, of rising rents 
 and profits, of the rapid muItipUcation of fertilising agencies, of 
 an expanding area of com cultivation, of more numerous, better 
 bred, better fed, better housed stock, of varied improvements in 
 every kind of implement and machinery, of growing expenditure on 
 the making of the land by drainage, the construction of roads, the 
 erection of farm buildings, and the division into fields of convenient 
 size. So far as the standard of the highest farming is concerned, 
 agriculture has made but httle advance since the " Fifties." The 
 last'twenty-six years of the reign, on the other hand, were a period 
 of agricultural adversity — of falling rents, dwindling profits, con- 
 
AN OLD EXPLANATION OF DISTRESS 347 
 
 tracting areas of arable cultivation, HiminiahiTig stock, decreasing 
 expenditure on land improvement. 
 
 In 1837 the farming industry had passed through a quarter of a 
 century of misfortunes, aggravated by a disordered currency, bank 
 failures, adverse seasons, labour difficulties, agrarian discontent. 
 During times of adversity it has always been the practice to charge 
 landowners, farmers, and even labourers with extravagance, to trace 
 distress to their increased luxury, to attribute their domestic diffi- 
 culties to their less simple habits. The explanation is as old as the 
 hills. Arthur Young, writing in 1773 On the Present State of 
 Waste Lands, remarks that the landed gentry were beggared by 
 their efforts to rival their wealthier neighbours who had amassed 
 fortunes in trade. The rural frog burst in his efforts to equal the 
 proportions of the civic ox. " The antient prospect which afforded 
 pleasure to twenty generations is poisoned by the pagodas and 
 temples of some rival neighbour ; some oilman who builds on the 
 soHd foundation of pickles and herrings. At church the Uveries 
 of a tobacconist carry all the admiration of the village ; and how 
 can the daughter of the antient but decayed gentleman stand the 
 competition at an assembly with the point, diamonds and tissues 
 of a haberdasher's nieces ? " Their tenants did not escape from 
 similar charges. In 1573 Tusser had alluded to farmers with " hawk 
 on hand " who neglected their business for sport ; in the nineteenth 
 century it was said to be the hunting-field or the racecourse which 
 attracted them from the farm or the market. In 1649 Walter BUth 
 had attributed the rural depression of that day to the " high 
 stomachs " of the farmers. So in 1816 the wiseacres of the London 
 clubs vehemently contended that farmers had only to return from 
 claret to beer, and their wives from the piano to the hen-house, 
 and agricultural distress would be at an end. It was reserved for 
 an imaginative versifier in 1801 to charge them with soaking five- 
 pound notes instead of rusks in their port wine. Somewhat similar 
 in tone was the outcry against labourers. " We hear," writes 
 Borlase, the Cornish antiquary, in 1771, " every day of murmurs of 
 the common people ; of want of employ ; of short wages ; of dear 
 provisions. There may be some reason for this ; our taxes are heavy 
 upon the necessaries of life ; but the chief reason is the extravagance 
 of the vulgar in the unnecessaries of life." Among the tinworkers 
 in his parish were three-score snuff-boxes at one time ; of fifty girls 
 above fifteen years old, forty-nine had scarlet cloaks. " There is 
 
348 HIGH PAEMING, 1837-1874 
 
 scarce a family in the parish, I mean of common labourers, but have 
 tea, once if not twice a day. ... In short, all labom-ers live above 
 their conditions." 
 
 The same explanations with regard to all classes of agriculturists 
 were repeated in 1837, and have been periodically offered ever since. 
 The diagnosis of disease would not be so popular if it were not easy 
 and to some extent true. It is, to say the least, iaadequate. When 
 the standard of living rises for all classes, agriculturists are not the 
 only men who spend money more lavishly than the prudence which 
 criticises after the event can justify. But the true explanation of 
 the distress lay in the fconditions already described. The old instru- 
 ment of farming had failed ; the new had not been perfected. An 
 agricultural revolution was in progress, which was none the less 
 complete in its operation because it was peaceful in its processes. 
 
 In 1837 agriculture was languishing ; farming had retrograded ; 
 heavy clay-lands were either abandoned or foul, and in a miserable 
 state of cultivation. Indifferent pasture, when first ploughed, had 
 produced good com crops from the accumulated mass of elements of 
 fertility which they had stored. But this savings bank of wealth 
 had been soon exhausted. At peace-prices half crops ceased to be 
 remtmerative, and the newly ploughed arable area was now recover- 
 ing itself from exhaustion to grass as best it could without assistance. 
 Lighter soils had suffered comparatively Uttle ; turnips, and the 
 Norfolk system had helped the eastern counties to bear the stress of 
 the storm, yet, even there, farmers had " had to put down their 
 chaises and their nags." Much of the progress made between 1790 
 and 1812 had been lost. Nor was this the worst feature. The 
 distrust which prevailed between farmers and their men had ex- 
 tended to tenants and their landlords. Men who had contracted 
 to pay war rents from peace profits were shy of leases. For at least 
 a generation confidence was shaken between landlord and tenant. 
 
 The brighter side to the picture was that, in the midst of much 
 suffering, the ground had been prepared for new conditions. Small 
 yeomen, openfield farmers, and commoners could never have fed a 
 manufacturing population. They could not have initiated and would 
 not have adopted agricultural improvements, of which some were still 
 experimental, and of which all required an initial expenditure. It 
 was from these classes that the most bigoted opponents of " Practice 
 with Science " were recruited, and their contempt was heartily 
 sincere for the innovations of the " apron-string " farmer. Socially 
 
RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 349 
 
 valuable though they were, they were becoming commercially dis- 
 credited. Their disappearance was a social loss ; but it had become 
 an economic necessity. The land could no longer be cultivated for 
 the needs of a scanty, scattered population, occupied in the tillage 
 of the soil, or engaged in one-man handicrafts. So long as England 
 depended for food on her own produce, — a condition which lasted 
 a quarter of a century after the repeal of the Com Laws, — ^it was 
 requisite that farming should be transformed from a self-sufficing 
 domestic industry into a profit-earning manufactory of bread, beef, 
 and mutton. Food, upon the scale that changed conditions 
 demanded, could only be produced upon land which had been 
 prepared for the purpose by the outlay of capitalist landlords and 
 the intelligent enterprise of large tenant-farmers. 
 
 In other respects, also, the distress of 1813-37 produced good 
 results. So long as war prices prevailed, prosperous years had 
 brought wealth to slovens, and sluggards had amassed riches in their 
 sleep. The coUapse of prosperity spurred the energies and enter- 
 prise of both landlords and tenants, who could only hold their own 
 by economising the cost and increasing the amount of production. 
 Within certain limits, low prices and keen competition compelled 
 improvement. Again, though the attraction of war-prices had 
 driven the plough through much valuable pasture, it had also supplied 
 the incentive which added hundreds of thousands of acres of wastes 
 to the cultivated area of the country. Finally, during the era of 
 Protection, landlords and farmers had learned to rely too entirely 
 upon ParUamentary help in their difficulties. They had been prone 
 to expect that alterations in the protective duties would turn the 
 balance between the success and failure of their harvests. Now,, 
 disappointment after disappointment had taught them the useful 
 lesson that they could expect no immediate assistance from legis- 
 lative inteiierence, and that, if they wanted aid, they must help 
 themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile legislation had been active in many useful directions. 
 The agricultural revolution, and the effects alike of war and peace, 
 had completely disorganised the labour market. Parliament co- 
 operated with industrial changes in redressing the balance between 
 demand and supply and in adapting the relations of capital and 
 labour to new conditions. For agricultural labourers the Poor-Law of 
 1834 did what the Factory legislation of 1833 had done for artisans. 
 The change produced immediate effect. The number of paupers 
 
350 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 steadily diminished, and the poor-rates fell from seven minions in 
 1832 to four millions in 1837. New means of transport had been 
 provided by the opening up of canals. Increased facilities of 
 communication had been supplied by progress in the art of road- 
 construction. Though Turnpike Trusts were proving inefficient on 
 the great highways, the first step towards the improvement of minor 
 roads had been taken by the Act of 1835, which substituted a rate 
 for the old statute labour. Another legislative result of the pro- 
 longed agricultural distress had been the Tithe Commutation Act of 
 1836. The incidence of the charge was shifted ; it no longer operated 
 as a check to the expenditure of capital or a discouragement to 
 skilful and enterprising farming. 
 
 It was a period of preparation, the full significance of which was 
 then imperfectly understood. Few persons in 1837 could have 
 foreseen the imminence of social and industrial changes which 
 introduced to British farming an unexampled era of prosperity, or 
 could have foretold that new markets would not only be opened up, 
 but brought to the doors of agriculturists. Signs of better times 
 were indeed faintly visible. Manufacturing progress was beginning 
 to tell upon agriculture ; steam navigation was stimulating trade ; 
 joint-stock banks helped farmers to face their difficulties ; the new 
 system of poor-law administration was restoring the labour market 
 to healthier conditions ; beef, mutton, wool, barley, and oats sold 
 briskly. Above all, the whole country was beginning to respond 
 to the vast impulse which the introduction of railways gave to its 
 intelligence, its intercourse, its enterprise, its agriculture, manu- 
 facture, and commerce. Without assistance or control by the State, 
 in the face of many difficulties and prejudices, railways were being 
 built piecemeal by private energy and capital. They were still in 
 their infancy. It was not till 1821 that the Act for the construction 
 of the Stockton and Darlington Railway had been passed. The 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in 1830, and the 
 line from London to Birmingham was completed in 1838. Between 
 those two dates fifty-six Acts had been already passed for laying 
 1,800 miles of rails. 
 
 The era of railways had begun. The real innovations lay in the 
 application of steam as the motive power to movable engines, 
 the construction of new and iudependent lines of communication, 
 the conveyance not only of goods but of passengers. Rail-ways to 
 faciUtate the transport of heavy weights had been in use for nearly 
 
WOODEN RAIL-WAYS 351 
 
 two centuries. They seem to have been first employed in the New- 
 castle district to convey coal from the pits to the shipping stages 
 on the Tyne. Wooden rails, laid on continuous parallel lines, were 
 pegged down to wooden sleepers, which were set two feet apart, the 
 intervals being filled in with stones or ashes. On these tracks, high 
 hopper-shaped waggons, set on soUd wooden wheels, were either 
 propelled by their own weight or drawn by horses. Log ways, 
 thus constructed, were called in eighteenth century Acts of ParUa- 
 ment " dram roads." They were in fact true tram-ways,^ though 
 the word " tram " has been transferred from the material out of 
 which the rails were originally constructed to the vehicle which 
 passes over them. Successive improvements were made in their 
 construction. Thus iron plates or iron fianges were fixed by 
 " plate-layers " to the rails to lessen the friction at the curves or 
 to keep the waggons on the track. About 1767 the rails began to 
 be made entirely of iron, which were generally cast with an iron 
 flange on the inner side. Similarly the wheels were made of cast 
 iron, though for some years the rear wheels continued to be made of 
 wood in order to strengthen the grip of the brake. In 1788 a still 
 more important change was made. The projections of the flanged 
 rail were found to be dangerous obstructions wherever lines crossed 
 highways. To meet this diflSculty, flanged wheels were introduced, 
 and the rails were made smooth. 
 
 By the latter half of the eighteenth century, there were few 
 collieries in the north which were not provided with their own rail- 
 ways, often carried, in order to secure easy gradients, through hills and 
 over valleys by means of cuttings, bridges, or embankments. They 
 were private roads, to which the pubHc had no access. Rail-ways 
 laid by Canal Companies under the powers of Acts of Parhament 
 were in a different position. Constructed by canal proprietors to 
 feed their traffic from potteries, furnaces, collieries, and quarries, 
 
 • Whether " tram-way " is derived from the material out of which the road 
 is contracted, or from the carriage which passes over it is doubtful. A will 
 dated 1555 mentions the repair " of the higheway or tram " in Bttmard 
 Castle. This use of the word, like the " dram-road " of eighteenth century 
 Acts of Parlicunent, suggests the log-way. On the other hand, the road may 
 have taken its name from the application of the word " tram " in the North 
 of England to a small carriage on four wheels, possibly gaining this meaning 
 through the Lowland Scottish use of the word for the " shaft " of a cart. 
 In either case, " tram " is Scandinavian in origin ; Norwegian, tram = a 
 door-step of wood; troom^a wooden frame, and Swedish tromm=a log, 
 or a summer sledge. See Skeat's EtymoVagical Dictionary of the English 
 Langiuige. 
 
352 HIGH FAKMING, 1837-1874 
 
 they were public highways, maintained, like turnpike roads, by the 
 payments of those who used them. The Canal Companies provided 
 no rolling stock. On payment of the stipulated tolls, any trader 
 might transport his goods over the flanged rails in his own vehicles 
 to the wharves. In the development of these Unes, which were 
 subsidiary to inland waterways, the lead was taken by the valley 
 of the Severn, the Western Midlands, and South Wales. The 
 utiKty of the system was at once apparent. Rail-ways multiphed 
 rapidly, not as rivals, but as aids, to the canals which they eventually 
 destroyed. 
 
 Numerous rail-ways, either in private hands or feeders to canals, 
 existed at the end of the eighteenth century. The first public 
 independent rail-way was constructed by Act of ParKamant in 1801. 
 The Surrey Iron Rail-way connected Croydon and the mills on the 
 Wandle with the Thames at Wandsworth. Originally intended to 
 ran to Portsmouth, it was never carried beyond Merstham. Nearly 
 twenty years later an Act of Parhament (1821) was obtained for 
 the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Rail-way. On 
 this line all the stages in the transformation of the ancient rail-way 
 into the modem type were exemplified. Hitherto speed had not 
 been regarded as an object. Horses were generally employed, and, 
 where steam had been introduced as the motive power, its use had 
 been practically confined to stationary engines, placed at the top of 
 inclines, wtlich by means of ropes or chains drew waggons up the 
 ascent and regulated the pace of their descent. In poetry, Erasmus 
 Darwin ^ had anticipated the coming triumph of steam : 
 
 " Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam ! afar 
 Drag the Blow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 
 Or on wide-waving Wings expanded bear 
 The fljnng chariot thro' the fields of air ! " 
 
 But in 1820 the vision of the " rapid car," drawn by steam, still 
 seemed as extravagant as the dream of the " flying chariot " appeared 
 to a later generation familiar with fast trains. The projectors of 
 the Stockton and Darlington Railway hesitated between wooden or 
 iron rails, between animal or steam power, between stationary or 
 movable engines. When the line was opened in 1825, the waggons, 
 under the advice of George Stephenson, were drawn over iron rails 
 at an average pace of five miles an hour by steam locomotives, 
 designed on the model of the engines which he had successfully 
 
 » The Botanic Garden, Part I. 289. 
 
TRIUMPH OF MODERN RAILWAYS 353 
 
 introduced at KiUingworth Colliery. Groods traffic only was at 
 first undertaken by the railway company. The conveyance of 
 passengers was left to private enterprise ; coaches drawn by one 
 horse ran over the rails, on payment of stipulated toUs, at intervals 
 when the goods trains were not running. It was not till 1833 that 
 the Company bought out the coach proprietors, and, a year later, 
 issued notices that they proposed to provide not only carriages for 
 goods, but " coaches " for the conveyance of passengers, drawn by 
 steam locomotives. 
 
 Before this final stage was reached in the County of Durham, 
 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had been opened (1830). 
 The project of the proposed line originated in dissatisfaction with 
 the cost and delay of canal transport. It was directly designed not 
 to feed but to rival the water way, and to break down a monopoly 
 in the carriage of heavy goods. Canal companies all over the country 
 became aJive to their danger. So strong was the opposition that 
 the first Bill was defeated. A second Bill was introduced, and passed 
 in 1826. Like the Stockton and DarUngton Company, the projectors 
 hesitated over the choice of motive power. They were stiU undecided 
 when the new line was approaching completion. To solve the 
 problem they offered a premium of £500 for the best locomotive 
 engine which should satisfy certain conditions. It was not to exceed 
 £550 in price and siz tons in weight ; it was also to draw three 
 times its own weight, at a speed of ten miles an hour on level ground, 
 The famous Rainhill trial (October 8, 1829), when Stephenson's 
 Bocliiet won the prize, sealed the fate of canals and inaugurated the 
 triumph of railways. Without their aid the modem organisation 
 of industry would have been impossible. The factory, the modem 
 farm, and the railway went hand in hand in development, and were 
 not dissimilar in their economic results. 
 
 With the ground thus prepared for a new start, but in gloom and 
 depression, agriculturists entered on the new reign. In comparing 
 agriculture in 1837 with that of 1912, the most striking feature is 
 the general level of excellence which now prevails. If we leave on 
 one side the achievements of chemical science and the triumphs of 
 mechanical invention, there are few improvements in the methods 
 and practices of agriculture which had not been anticipated by 
 individuals seventy years ago. But the knowledge which was then, 
 at the most, confined to one or two men in a county is now generally 
 practised. The best farmers of that day could not have explained 
 
354 fflGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 the reasons for their methods ; they farmed by experience and in- 
 tuition. Judgment is still all-important ; but practice has now been 
 reduced to principles and rules, which make the best methods 
 more nearly common property, or at least place them within reach 
 of all. The best arable farms in 1837 were cropped much as they 
 are now, except that rotations were more rigid and inelastic. Pedigree 
 barleys and pedigree wheats were already experimented upon by 
 Patrick ShirrefE, Dr. Chevallier, and Colonel Le Couteur. By the 
 most enterprising of our predecessors all the kinds of farm produce 
 which are raised to-day were raised seventy years ago. 
 
 Live-stock has doubtless immensely improved since the accession 
 of Queen Victoria. Specialisation did away with " general utility " 
 animals, and successfully developed symmetry, quality, early 
 maturity, or yield of milk among cattle. But the value and im- 
 portance of improving breeds had been thoroughly appreciated by 
 the best farmers before 1837. Though only one herd-book — Coates's 
 Shorthorn Herdbook (1822) — ^had begun to appear, the followers 
 of Bakewell, — such as Charles and Robert Colling, Thomas Bates, 
 of Kirklevington, the Booths, and Sir Charles Knightley with the 
 Shorthorns, — Benjamin Tomkins, John Hewer, and the Prices with 
 the Herefords, — ^Francis Quartly, George Turner, WiUiam Davy, 
 and Thomas Coke of Norfolk with the North Devons, — ^had already 
 brought to a high degree of perfection the breeds with which their 
 names are respectively associated. Flockmasters, Uke cattle- 
 breeders, had recognised the coming changes. Before 1837 Bakewell's 
 methods had been extensively imitated. The Lincolns, the Border 
 Leicesters of the Culleys, the Southdowns of EUman of Glynde and 
 Jonas Webb of Babraham, the Black-faced Heath breed of David 
 Dun, the Cheviots of Robson of Belford were already firmly estab- 
 lished ; and some of the best of the local varieties of sheep, enum- 
 erated by Sir John Sinclair in his Address to the British Wool 
 Society (1791), were beginning to find their champions. Nor 
 were pigs unappreciated. The reproach was no longer justified 
 which, at the close of the eighteenth century, Arthiir Young had 
 directed against farmers for their neglect of this source of profit. 
 Here, again, Bakewell had led the way. Efforts were being made to 
 improve such native breeds as the Yorkshire Whites, the Tamworths, 
 the reddish-brown Berkshires, or the black breeds of Essex and 
 Suffolk. 
 
 Oxen were still extensively used for farm work. It is therefore 
 
IMPROVEMENT IN FAEM-HORSES 355 
 
 not surprising that comparatively little attention had been paid to 
 horses for agricultural purposes. Yet here, too, some progress was 
 made, particularly from the point of view of specialisation. The 
 Clydesdales were coming to the front as rivals to old English breeds. 
 Beauty was not the strong point of the " Sorrel-coloured Suffolk 
 Punch." Nor was he any longer suited to the pace required in the 
 modem hunting-field or on the improved roads. But in 1837 it 
 was recognised that his unrivalled power of throwing his whole 
 weight into the coUar fitted Vn'm pre-eminently for farm work. 
 A wifnilar change was passing over the Cleveland Bay. Threatened 
 with extinction by the disappearance of coaches, he was found to be 
 invaluable on light-soil farms. So also a definite place was assigned 
 to another breed known to the sixteenth century. The " Large 
 Black Old English Cart-horse," which Young calls " the produce 
 principally of the Shire counties in the heart of England," was, to 
 some extent, experimented upon by BakeweU. But the develop- 
 ment of the breed belongs to a later date than the first half of the 
 Victorian era, and it is as a draught-horse that the Shire has been, 
 since 1879, patronised by Societies and enrolled in stud-books. 
 
 It has been said that while the general standard of farming was 
 still extremely low, the best practice of individual farmers in 1837 
 has been little improved by the progress of seventy years. Pro- 
 duction has been considerably increased ; but the higher averages 
 are due to the wider diffusion of the best practices rather than to 
 any notable novelties, and it is in live-stock that real advance is 
 most clearly marked. If, however, we turn from the highest practice 
 of farming to the general conditions under which it was carried on, 
 or to the processes by which crops were cultivated, harvested, 
 and marketed, the contrast between 1837 and 1912 is almost 
 startling. 
 
 In 1837 the open-field system still prevailed extensively. Hold- 
 ings were in general inconvenientiy small, though in some parts of 
 the country farms had been, consolidated. Farm-buildings, often 
 placed at the extreme end of the holding, consisted of large bams 
 for storing and threshing com, a stable and yard for cart-horses, a 
 shed for carts and waggons. But the cattle, worse housed than the 
 waggons, were huddled into draughty, rickety sheds, erected without 
 plan, ranged round a yard whence the liquid manure, freely diluted 
 from the unspouted roofs, ran first into a horse-pond, and thence 
 escaped into the nearest ditch. In these sheds the live-stock sub- 
 
366 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 aisted during the winter months on starvation allowance. Fat 
 cattle, instead of being conveyed by rail quickly and cheaply, were 
 driven to distant markets, losing weight every yard of the way. 
 Long legs were still a consideration for sheep which had to plough 
 through miry lanes. Farm roads were few and bad. Where land 
 had been early enclosed, the fields were often small, fenced with 
 high and straggling hedges. Very little land was drained, and, 
 except in SofFolk and Essex, scarcely any effort had been made to 
 carry off the surface-water from clay soils. 
 
 Little or no machinery was employed in any operation of tillage. 
 In remote parts of the country, even on light soils and for summer 
 work, heavy wooden ploughs with wooden breasts, slowly drawn 
 by teams of five horses or six oxen, attended by troops of men and 
 boys, still lumbered on their laborious way, following the sinuous 
 shape of boundary fences, or throwing up ridges crooked like an 
 inverted S, and laid high by successive ploughing towards the crown. 
 In more advanced districts, less cumbrous and more effective im- 
 plements of lighter draught, wheel or swing, were employed. But 
 not a few discoveries of real value fell into disuse, or failed to find 
 honour in the land of their birth, till they returned to this country 
 with the brand of American innovations. The mistake was too 
 often made of exaggerating the universal value of a new implement 
 in the style of modem vendors of patent-medicines. Enthusiasts 
 forgot that provincial customs were generally founded on common- 
 sense, and that farmers reasoned from actual instances which had 
 come within their personal experience. The boast that a two-horse 
 plough, with reins and one man, could, on all soils and at all seasons, 
 do the work of the heavy implement dear to the locality only made 
 the ancient heirloom more precious in the eye of its owner. It was 
 with antiquated implements, heavy in the draught, that most of 
 tiie soil was still cultivated. Harrows were generally primitive in 
 form and inefEective in operation, scarcely penetrating the ground and 
 powerless to stir the weeds. To keep the seed-bed firm agaifast the 
 loosening efiects of frost the only roller was a stone or the trunk of 
 a tree heavily weighted. When the bed was prepared for the crop, 
 the seed was stiU sown broadcast by hand, or, more rarely, either 
 dibbed or drilled. The Northumberland drill for turnips, and the 
 Suffolk drill for cereals, which travelled every year on hire as far as 
 Oxfordshire, had already attained something more than local 
 popularity. But com and roots, even in 1837, were seldom either 
 
HARVESTING AND MARKETING CROPS 357 
 
 drilled or dibbed. The advantages of both methods were still hotly 
 denied. A man who used a drill would be asked by his neighbours 
 when he was going to sow pepper from a pepper-caster. Prom the 
 time the seed was sown and harrowed in, the infant crops waged an 
 internecine and unaided strife with weeds. Even the hand-hoe 
 rarely helped cereals in the struggle, for the cost was heavy, and the 
 work, unless carefully supervised, was easily scamped. 
 
 In 1837 hand-labour alone gathered the crops. Com was cut by 
 scythes, fagging hooks, or sickles ; if with the first, each sc3rtheman 
 was followed by a gatherer and a binder ; a stooker and raker com- 
 pleted the party. When a good man headed the gang, with four 
 men to each scytheman, two acres a day per scythe were easily 
 completed. Threshed by the flail, the grain was heaped into a head 
 on the floor of the bam. The cha£E was blown away by means of 
 the draught of wind created by a revolving wheel, with sacks nailed 
 to its arms, which was turned by hand. Thus winnowed, the grain 
 was shovelled, in small quantities at a time, into a hopper, whence it 
 ran, in a thin stream, down a screen or riddle. As the stream 
 descended, the smaller seeds were separated and removed. The 
 wheat was then piled at one end of the bam, and " thrown " in the 
 air with a casting shovel to the other extremity. The heavy grain 
 went furthest ; the lighter, or " tail," dropped short. To some of 
 the com in both heaps the chaff still adhered. These " whiteheads " 
 were removed by fanning in a large basket tray, pressed to the body 
 of the fanner, who tossed the grain in the air, at the same time lower- 
 ing the outer edge of the tray. By this process the whiteheads were 
 brought to the top and extremity of the fan, whence they were 
 swept by the hand. Lastly the com was measured, and poured into 
 four-bushel sacks, ready for market. The operation of dressiag was 
 slow. As the sun streamed through a crack in the bam-door, it 
 reached the notches which were cut in the wood-work to mark the 
 passage of time and the recurrence of the hours for lunch and dinner. 
 The operation was expensive as well as slow, costing from six to seven 
 shillings a quarter. Hay was similarly made in all its stages by 
 hand, and with a care which preserved its colour and scent. The 
 grass, mown by the scythe, fell iato swathes. These were broken 
 up by the haymakers, drawn with the hand-rake into windrows, 
 first single, then double. The double windrows were pulled over 
 once, put first into small cocks, then into larger which were 
 topped up and trimmed so as to be shower proof, and finally 
 
358 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 arranged in cart-rows for pitching and loading. Women, working 
 behind the carts, allowed scarcely a blade to escape their rakes. 
 
 The farmer in 1837 had a reaper at his command, but he did not 
 value the gift. Its sudden popularity illustrates a point which is 
 perpetually recurring in the history of agricultiu-al machinery. As 
 soon as the want is created, the machine is not only discovered but 
 appreciated. Many attempts were made to perfect a reaper. But 
 none met with any real success tiU machines not only cut the 
 com but laid it in sheaves, tiU fields were enlarged, till thorough 
 drainage was adopted, and, as a consequence, the old high-ridging 
 system abandoned. It is a sign, and a consequence, of changes 
 in farming that the Bev. Patrick Bell's reaper, invented in 1826, was 
 not really appreciated tUl it was manufactured (1853) by Crosskill 
 aa the "Beverley Beaper." Threshing and winnowing machines 
 were to be found on a few large farms, or travelled the country on 
 hire, worked by horse, water, or steam power. For feeding stock, 
 chaS-cutters and tumip-sUcers were already known ; but they made 
 their way slowly into use. Chafi was stiU generally cut, and turnips 
 split, by a chopper. If cattle or sheep were unable to bite, they ran 
 the risk of being starved. 
 
 No one who studies the agriculture of 1837 can fail to notice the 
 perpetual contrast, often in the most glaring form, between the 
 practices of adjoining agriculturists. A hundred farmers plodded 
 along the Elizabethan road, while a solitary neighbour marched in 
 the track of the twentieth century. Discoveries in scientific farm- 
 ing, put forward as novelties, were repeatedly found to be in practice 
 in one district or another. The great need was the existence of 
 some agency which would raise the general level of farming by making 
 the best practices of the best agriculturists common knowledge. The 
 problem was not readily solved. To diffuse scientific and practical 
 information among agriculturists was difficult seventy years ago. 
 Books were expensive, and those for whom they were written were 
 often unable to read. Few of the agricultural works published 
 before the reign of Victoria were produced by men of practical 
 experience. Extravagant promises or incorrect science too often 
 discounted the value of useful suggestions. What was really wanted 
 was ocular demonstration of the superiority of new methods, or the 
 example of men of authority who combined scientific with practical 
 knowledge. Some of the agricultural societies already in existence 
 were doing good work in communicating the results of experiments. 
 
THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 359 
 
 organismg shows, and encouraging discoveries ; others met rather for 
 the consumption of meat and drink than for the discussion of their 
 production. The Board of Agriculture had established a strong 
 claim to the gratitude of farmers by providing Davy's lectures on 
 agricultural chemistry in 1803-13. But its dissolution in 1822 had 
 been one of the symptoms of distress. The foundation of the Royal 
 Agricultural Society of England, projected in 1837, established in 
 1838, and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1840, with Queen 
 Victoria as patron, was at once a sign of revival and a powerful 
 agent in restoring prosperity. 
 
 Among the founders of the Society were many of the best-known 
 landowners and most practical agriculturists of the day. Their 
 association in a common cause carried weight and authority through- 
 out the whole country. Their recognition of their territorial duties 
 and enthusiasm for the general advancement of agriculture were 
 communicated to others, and commanded success by their sincerity. 
 The Society met a recognised want in the right way. It proclaimed 
 the alliance between practical farmers and men both of capital and 
 of science ; it indicated the directions in which agriculture was 
 destined to advance. The wise exclusion of politics, though for a 
 moment it threatened to endanger the existence of the new institu- 
 tion, eventually secured it the support of men of every shade of 
 political opinion. By the comprehensiveness, elasticity, and fore- 
 sight, with which its lines of development were traced, it has been 
 enabled to meet the varying needs of seventy years of change. It 
 has encouraged practical farming on scientific principles ; it has also 
 encouraged agricultural science to proceed on practical lines. It has 
 by premiums and pecuniary aid promoted discovery and invention ; 
 by its shows it has fostered competition, stimulated enterprise, and 
 created a standard of the best possible results, methods, processes, 
 and materials in British agriculture. Its Journal disseminated the 
 latest residts of scientific research at home and abroad, as well as 
 the last lessons of practical experience. In its pages wiU be found 
 the truest picture of the history of farming in the reign of Queen 
 Victoria. Starting as it did under pecuharly favourable circum- 
 stances, and supported by writers like Philip Pusey and Chandos 
 Wren-Hoskyns, it commanded the pens of masters in the lost art of 
 agricultural literature — ^men who wrote with the knowledge of 
 specialists and with the forcible simpUcity of practical men of the 
 world. Without exaggeration it may be said that the general 
 
360 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 standard of excellence to which fanning has attained throughout 
 the kingdom has been to a considerable extent the work of the Boyal 
 Agricultural Society. For more than seventy years it has been the 
 heart and brain of agriculture. The local associations which now 
 compete with it in popularity are in great measure its own creations, 
 and it can contemplate with pride, unmixed with envy, the sturdy 
 growth of its own children. 
 
 From 1840 to 1901, Queen Victoria was the patron, and to Her 
 Majesty's patronage the Society owed much of its prestige and con- 
 sequent utihty. It has been said that " agriculture " is " the pursuit 
 of kings " ; yet the feeling certainly had existed that farming weis 
 beneath the dignity of gentry. Fortunately for British farming,^ 
 landlords have had a truer perception of their territorial duties as 
 well as of their pecuniary interests. In taking the lead they have 
 made a vast outlay of private capital. Windsor, Osborne, Babnoral, 
 Sandringham, and the home-farms of large landowners have set 
 the fashion, and afforded the model, to hosts of agriculturists. They 
 have helped not only to raise the standard of British farming, but 
 also to make a costly industry a fashionable yet earnest pursuit. 
 A detailed history, for instance, of the Windsor farms would epito- 
 mise the history of agricultural progress in the nineteenth century. 
 Boads were laid out. Liebig's discovery that warmth is a saving of 
 food was acted upon, and substantial buildings were erected, designed 
 to economise the expense and labour of cattle-feeding, and at the 
 same time to preserve manure from waste or impoverishment. 
 Skilfully selected herds of pure-bred Shorthorns, Herefords, and 
 Devons were formed ; quantities of food were purchased ; the soil 
 was drained on scientific principles ; the arable land, for the most 
 part a stiff clay, was ameliorated and enriched by high farming ; 
 the latest inventions in implements or machinery were tested and 
 adopted ; the grass-lands were improved by experiment and careful 
 management ; a model dairy, designed to meet the exacting require- 
 ments of modem sanitation and convenience, was erected ; and, to 
 supply the milk, a pure-bred herd of Jersey cattle was formed which 
 soon became one of the most celebrated in the coimtry. 
 
 The work which the Royal Agricultural Society was established 
 to do was not done by it alone. Other societies, as well as associa- 
 tions and farmers' clubs, assisted in spreading scientific and practical 
 knowledge of farming. Among many other useful writers on the 
 subject the Rev. W. L. Rham, Youatt, James Johnston, Henry 
 
ALLIANCE OF SCIENCE WITH PRACTICE 361 
 
 Stephens, Dr. Lindley, and John Chalmers Morton, as Editor of 
 the AgricuUural Gaiette did excellent service. The school-master 
 was abroad, and the foimdation of Cirencester Agricultural College 
 in 1845 was a sign of the times. The need for agricultural 
 statistics, which had long been severely felt, had been emphasised by 
 Sir James (then Mr.) Caird in 1850-1. But it was not tiU 1866 that 
 the want was supplied. Attempts had been frequently made to 
 obtain statistical information, but without success. Fear of 
 increased taxation closed the mouths of landowners and farmers. 
 In 1855 a House of Lords Committee reconunended the compulsory 
 collection of statistics through the agency of the Poor-Law officials. 
 Eleven years later (1866) the Agricultural Returns of Great Britain 
 for the first time supplied an accurate account of the acreage, the 
 cropping, and the live-stock of the cotmtry. 
 
 The new alliance of science with practice bore rich and immediate 
 fruit. Science helped practical farming in ways as varied as they 
 were innumerable. Chemists, geologists, physiologists, entomolo- 
 gists, botanists, zoologists, veterinaries, bacteriologists, architects, 
 mechanics, engineers, surveyors, statisticians, lessened the risks and 
 multiplied the resources of the farmer. Steam and machinery 
 diminished his toil and reduced his expenses. His land was neither 
 left idle nor its fertility exhausted. Improved implements rendered 
 his labour cheaper, quicker, surer, and more efEective. New means 
 of transport and increased facilities of communication brought new 
 markets to his door. Commodious and convenient buildings re- 
 placed tumble-down bams and draughty sheds. Veterinary skill 
 saved the lives of valuable animals. The general level of agriculture 
 rose rapidly towards that which only model farms had attained in 
 the previous period. Soimd roads, well-arranged homesteads, heavy 
 crops, well-bred stock, skilled farmers, and high farming character- 
 ised the era which adopted the Royal Agricultural Society's rule of 
 Practice with Science. Cut ofE from their old resource of increasing 
 production by adding to the cultivated area, deprived of the aid of 
 Protection, agriculturists were compelled to adopt improved methods. 
 The age of farming by extension of area had ended ; that of 
 farming by intension of capital had begun. 
 
 To trace out in full detail one single point in which science has 
 helped farmers would be the work of a separate volume. Selection 
 and outline are all that is possible. Probably the most striking con- 
 tributions which, during the period under review, were made to the- 
 
362 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 progress of agriculture are the extension of drainage, the discovery 
 of artificial manures, the increased purchase of feeding stufEs for 
 cattle, the improvement of implements, the readier acceptance of new 
 ideas and inventions. Such an advance was impossible in the dajrs 
 of pack-waggons. By the railways aU that farmers had to sell or 
 wanted to buy, — com and cattle, coal, implements, machinery, 
 manures, oil-cake, letters and newspapers, as well as the men them- 
 selves, — ^were conveyed to and fro more expeditiously and more 
 cheaply. 
 
 Drainage was the crying need of the day both for pasture and 
 arable land. If the land was heavy and undrained pasture, the 
 moisture-loving plants overpowered the more nutritive herbage ; 
 the over-wetness became in rajny seasons a danger to the stock ; 
 the early and late growth of grass was checked ; the effect of autumn 
 and spring frosts was more severely felt. If stiff, retentive, un- 
 drained land was under the plough, it was cultivated at greater cost, 
 on fewer days in the year, during a season shorter at both ends, 
 than hghter soils ; unless the seasons were favourable, it produced 
 late and scanty harvests of com and beans, was often unsafe for 
 stock, could bear the introduction neither of roots nor of green- 
 cropping, repeatedly needed bare fallows, wasted much of the 
 benefit of manures and feeding stuff. For many years clay-farmers 
 had been seeking for some expedient which would remedy the over- 
 wetness of their land, and enable them to share in the profits that 
 new resources had placed within reach of their neighbours on freer 
 and more porous soils . It was upon them that the blow of agri- 
 cultural depression from 1813 to 1836 had fallen with the greatest 
 severity. Clay farms had fallen into inferior hands, partly because 
 men of capital preferred mixed or grazing farms. Weaker tenants 
 were thus driven on to the heavier land, on which they could not 
 afford the outlay needed to make their holdings profitable. Yet 
 their strong land, if seasons proved favourable, was still capable 
 of yielding the heaviest crops. Some process was needed which 
 would so change the texture of the soil as to render it more friable, 
 easier to work, more penetrable to the rain, more accessible to air 
 and manure, and therefore warmer and kindher for the growth of 
 plant life. 
 
 The usual expedient for carrying off the water from heavy soils 
 was the open-field practice of throwing the land into high ridges, 
 whence the rain flowed into intervening furrows, which acted as 
 
ANCIENT METHODS OF DRAINAGE 363 
 
 surface-drams. But this device not only stripped the land of some 
 of its most valuable portions by washing the surface tilth into the 
 furrows, it also robbed the soil of the fertilising agencies which 
 rain-water holds in solution and by percolation carries downwards 
 to the plants. For both these reasons the ancient practice of such 
 coimties as Essex and Suffolk was a great advance. In those 
 counties trenches were cut from 2 ft. to 2J ft. in depth at frequent 
 intervals, filling the bottom of the cavity with boughs of thorn, 
 heath, or alder, and the soil replaced. Sometimes, where peat or 
 stones were easily available, they were used instead of bushes. 
 Sometimes the filling was only intended to support the soil until a 
 natural arch was consoUdated to form a waterway. For this more 
 temporary purpose, twisted ropes of straw or hops, or a wooden plug, 
 which was afterwards drawn out, were generally employed. In 
 other counties, other materials or devices were adopted. Thus ia 
 Leicestershire, a V-shaped sod was cut, the bottom end taken ofE, 
 and the rest replaced. In Hertfordshire, at the lowest part of the 
 field, a pit was sunk into a more porous stratum, filled up with stones, 
 and covered in with earth. Many of the Suffolk and Essex drains 
 lasted a considerable time ; but the arched waterways were apt to 
 choke or fall in, and the depth at which they were placed was 
 considered unsuitable for land under the plough. So Uttle was the 
 practice known outside these two counties that in 1841 its existence 
 was a revelation to so enlightened an agriculturist as Phihp Pusey. 
 In tapping springs, caused by water meeting an impervious subsoil 
 and rising to the surface, most useful work had been done by Joseph 
 Elkington,^ a Warwickshire farmer in the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century. Throughout the Midland counties his services were in 
 such request that his crow-bar was compared to the rod of Moses. 
 In 1797 he had received £1,000 from ParUament on the recommenda- 
 tion of the Board of Agriculture, and an attempt was made to reduce 
 his practice to rules. But his success was so much the result of his 
 personal observation and experience that the attempt failed. The 
 principles of drainage were not yet imderstood. 
 
 In 1823 James Smith of Deanston, then a man of 34, began to 
 cultivate the small farm attached to the Deanston Cotton Works 
 of which he was manager. By his system of drainage and deep 
 
 • An Account of the moat approved Mode of Draining Land according to 
 Ihe System practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington, by John Johnstone, Land Sur- 
 veyor, Edinburgh, 1797. 
 
364 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 ploughing he converted a rush-grown marsh into a garden. Hia 
 drains were trenches 2^ ft. deep, filled with stones and covered over, 
 cut in parallel lines from 16 to 21 ft. apart. Agriculturists flocked 
 to Perthshire to see with their own eyes the transformation and its 
 causes. Smith's Remarks on Thorough Draining and Deep Ploughing 
 (1831) were widely read, and in 1834 he was examined as a witness 
 by the Committee which was then enquiring into the condition of 
 agriculture. The value of his experience was recognised ; enquiry 
 and discussion were excited. In 1843 Josiah Parkes, profiting by 
 the knowledge which he had acquired in draining Chat Moss, laid 
 down his principles of drainage. Thinking that Smith's trenches 
 were too shallow, he advocated a depth of four feet, which would 
 give a sufficient layer of warm meUow surface earth. On these 
 principles miUions of acres were drained, and thousands of pounds 
 wasted where drains were laid too deep. The necessary implements, 
 were quickly perfected. But for some Uttle time a cheap conduit 
 remained a difficulty. Stones were not everywhere available, and, 
 if carted and broken, their use wiis expensive. In 1843 John Beade,^ 
 a gardener by trade and a self-taught mechanic, produced a cylin- 
 drical clay-pipe. Two years later (1845) Thomas Scragg patented 
 a pipe-making machine which enabled the kilns to work cheaply 
 and expeditiously. The capital and the soil of the country became 
 acquainted on an extensive scale. Within the next few years, two 
 large public loans for drainage, repaid by annual instalments, were 
 taken up, and treble the amount was spent by private owners or 
 advanced by private companies. Drainage became the popular 
 improvement by which landlords endeavoured to encourage tenants 
 who were dismayed by the repeal of the Com Laws. It gave clay 
 farmers longer seasons and added to the number of the days on 
 which they could work their land ; it increased the ease of their 
 operations and the efficacy of their manures ; it secured an earUer 
 seedtime and an earlier harvest, raised the average produce, and 
 lowered the cost of working ; it enabled the occupiers of hundreds 
 of thousands of acres to profit by past as well as future discoveries. 
 Drainage was a necessary preliminary to profitable manuring. On 
 undrained land farmers could not use to full advantage the new 
 
 1 In the Weekly Miscdlany for the Improvement of Husbandry, etc., for 
 August 22, 1727, Stephen Switzer had recommended the use of pipes made 
 of " potter's clay " for the conveyance of water, and advertised that the pipes 
 were made by pipe-making machines which enabled the kihis to work cheaply 
 and expeditiously. 
 
THE CHOICE OF MANURES 366 
 
 means of wealth which agricultural chemistry was placing at their 
 command. But while drainage, in the main, helped only one class 
 of farmers, the benefits of manure were universal. The practice 
 of manuring is of immemorial antiquity. But it was in the extended 
 choice of fertilising substances, in the scientific analysis of their 
 composition and values, in their concentration and portability, and 
 in the greater range of time at which they cordd be profitably 
 apphed that a prodigious advance was made during the Victorian 
 era. 
 
 For inland farmers in rural districts the choice of manures was 
 practically limited to the ashes of vegetable refuse which represented 
 the food drawn by the plant from the soil, " catch-cropping " with 
 leguminous crops, folding sheep, and farmyard manure. " Nothing 
 like muck " had become a proverb when there was practically 
 " nothing but muck " to be used. On the same poverty of fertilising 
 resources were founded the severe restrictions against selling hay, 
 straw, and roots off farms. In another sense the proverb is true — 
 fortunately for the fertility of the country. Biich both in organic 
 and inorganic substances, combining both nitrogen and minerals, 
 possessing for the loosening of clay lands a pecuUar value, farmyard 
 manure is the only substance which contains in itself all the con- 
 stituent elements of fertility. Our predecessors thus commanded 
 the most valuable of fertilising agencies, the most certain and the 
 least capricious. But in their open unspouted, unguttered yards, 
 in their ignorance of the importance of the Uquid elements, and with 
 their straw-fed stock, the manure was both wasted and impoverished. 
 Nor is it only in the quantity and quality of dung, or in its collection 
 and treatment, that fanners have the advantage to-day. Formerly 
 distant fields suffered when no concentrated and portable fertiliser 
 existed, and, valuable though dung is, its uses are not unlimited. In 
 the infancy, moreover, of agricultural science, men had little know- 
 ledge of the composition of soils, the necessities of plant life, or the 
 special demand that each crop makes on the land. It is in all these 
 respects that modem resources axe multiplied. The supply of con- 
 centrated portable manures, adapted by their varied range to all 
 conditions of the soil, capable of restoring those elements of fertility 
 which each particular crop exhausts, and applicable at different 
 stages of plant life, is the greatest achievement of modem agri- 
 cultural science. 
 
 It is to the great German chemist Idebig that modem agriculture 
 
366 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 owes the origin of its most striking development. In 1840 his 
 Chemistry in its applications to Agriculture and Physiology ^ cleariy 
 traced the relations between the nutrition of plants and the com- 
 position of the soil. In his mineral theory he was proved to be 
 mistaken ; but his book revolutionised the attitude which agri- 
 culturists had maintained towards chemistry. So great was the 
 enthusiasm of country gentlemen for Liebig and his discoveries, as 
 popularised by men like Johnston and Voelcker, that the Royal 
 Chemical Society of 1845 was in large measure founded by their 
 efforts. But if the new agriculture was bom in the laboratory of 
 Giessen, it grew into strength at the experimental station of Rotham- 
 sted. To Sir John Lawes and his colleague Sir Henry Gilbert 
 (himself a pupil of Liebig) farmers of to-day owe an incalculable 
 debt. By their experiments, continued for more than half a 
 century, the main principles of agricultural science were established ; 
 the objects, method, and effects of manuring were ascertained ; the 
 scientific bases for the rotation of crops were explained ; and the 
 results of food upon animals in producing meat, milk, or manure 
 were tested and defined. On their work has been built the modem 
 fabric of British agriculture. 
 
 With increased knowledge of the wants of plant or animal life 
 came the supply of new means to meet those requirements. Arti- 
 ficial manure may be roughly distinguished from dung as purchased 
 manures. Of these fertilising agencies, farmers in 1837 already 
 knew soot, bones, salt, saltpetre, hoofs and horns, shoddy, and such 
 substances as marl, clay, lime and chalk. But they knew little or 
 nothing of nitrate of soda, of Peruvian guano, of superphosphates, 
 kainit, muriate of potash, rape-dust, sulphate of ammonia, or basic 
 slag. Though nitrate of soda was introduced in 1835, and ex- 
 perimentally employed in small quantities, it was in 1850 still a 
 novelty. The first cargo of Peruvian guano was consigned to a 
 Liverpool merchant in 1835 ; but in 1841 it was still so little known 
 that only 1,700 tons were imported ; six years later (1847) the im- 
 portation amounted to 220,000 tons. Bones were beginning to be 
 extensively used. Their import value rose from £14,395 in 1823 to 
 £254,600 in 1837. As originally broken in small pieces with a 
 hammer, they were slow in producing their effect ; but the rapidity 
 
 ' Orgame Chemistry in its applications to Agriculture and Physiology. By- 
 Justus Liebig : edited from the manuscript of the author by Lyon Playfair, 
 1840. 
 
ARTIFICIAL MANURES 367 
 
 of their action was enormously increased by grinding them to a coarse 
 meal. Bape-dust was not known in the South of England at the 
 b^inning of the Victorian era. In 1840 liebig suggested the treat- 
 ment of bones with sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes began the 
 manufacture of superphosphate of lime, and set up his works at 
 Bow. So far the chemists ; the next step was taken by geologists. 
 At the suggestion of Professor Henslow, the same treatment to 
 which bones were already subjected was applied to coproUtes, and 
 the rich deposits of Cambridgeshire and other counties, as well as 
 kindred forms of mineral phosphates, imported from all parts of 
 the world, were similarly " dissolved." Even Peruvian guano was 
 subjected to the same treatment. Another important addition to 
 the wealth of fertilising agencies was made by Odams, who about 
 1850 discovered the manurial value of the blood and garbage of 
 London slaughter-houses, mixed with bones and sulphuric acid. 
 
 It is in the means of applying appropriate manures to lands 
 which are differently composed, and to crops which vary in their 
 special requirements, that modern farmers enjoy exceptional 
 advantages over their predecessors. The active competition of 
 rival manufacturers assisted the adoption of the new fertilisers. 
 Many men, who would not listen to the lectures of professors, or 
 read the articles of chemical experts, were worried by persistent 
 agents for the sale of patent manures into giving them a trial. 
 Indirectly, their use led to clean farming. A farmer who had paid 
 £10 a ton for manure was unwiUing to waste half its value on wet 
 ill-drained land. He was less likely to allow it to fertilise weeds, and 
 the more ready to buy a machine to distribute it carefully. Thus, 
 as consequences of purchased fertilisers, followed the extensive use 
 of the drain-pipe, the drill, the hand-hoe, and the horse-hoe. Yet 
 chemical science did not at once fulfil the sanguine expectations 
 which were formed of its capacity in the early " Fifties." The 
 confident hope that the specific fertility extracted by a crop could 
 be restored by a corresponding manure was scarcely confirmed by 
 experience ; and many a farmer did himself as much harm as good 
 by the appUcation of fertilisers which were unsuited to his land. 
 
 Manure and drainage acted and reacted upon one another : the one 
 encouraged the other. Previous rules of successive cropping were 
 revolutionised ; more varied courses were gradually and universally 
 introduced. The old exhausting system of two or three crops 
 and a bare fallow was abandoned when land had been drained, and 
 
368 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 fertilisers, portable, cheap and abundant, were placed at the com- 
 mand of the fanner. Without manure the attempt to grow roots 
 or clover failed ; their introduction only protracted the shift, and 
 aggravated the difficulty of inevitable exhaustion. Now, however, 
 the principle was gradually established that he who put most into 
 his land got most out. Farmers recognised by experience, when the 
 means were at their disposal, that, on the one hand, if they ruined 
 their land their land ruined them, and that, on the other hand, 
 only those who have lathered can shave. It was in readiness to 
 invest capital in the land that one of the chief differences between 
 the earher race of agriculturists and the modem type of farmer 
 became most conspicuous. The main objects of the former were to 
 feed their famihes and avoid every possible outlay of cash. Hard- 
 living and hard-working, they rarely thought of spending sixpence 
 on manure, still less on cattle food to make it. They gave Uttle to 
 the land and received little. The consequent loss in the national 
 means of subsistence can scarcely be exaggerated. Modem farmers, 
 on the other hand, not only purchased thousands of tons of artificial 
 fertilisers. They also bought for their hve-stock vast quantities of 
 feeding-stuff, which supplemented their own produce. Roots, clover, 
 beans, barley-meal, hay, chaff, as well as artificial purchased food, 
 were supphed to the sheep and cattle, which once had only survived 
 the winter as bags of skin and bone. Just as guano from Peru 
 was turned into English com, or bones from the Pampas into English 
 roots, so the Syrian locust-pod, the Egyptian bean, the Indian com, 
 or the Russian linseed were converted into English meat. The 
 gain to the nation was immense, and to the farmer it was not small. 
 The return on his money was quickened. He sold his stock to the 
 butcher twice within the same time which was formerly needed to 
 prepare them once, and that less perfectly. At the same time his 
 command of manure was trebled in quantity and quality, and on 
 clay lands his long-straw muck was of special value. 
 
 The changes which have been noticed in modem farming necessi- 
 tated more frequent operations of tillage, which, without mechanical 
 inventions would have been too costly to be possible. Here, again, 
 science came to the aid of the farmer, and supplied the means of 
 making his labour cheaper, quicker, and more certain. The Royal 
 Agricultural Society may legitimately pride itself on the useful part 
 which it has played in introducing to the notice of agriculturists 
 the new appliances which mechanical skill has placed at their service. 
 
AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY 369 
 
 Yet, when the Society was founded, none of its promoters foresaw 
 the importance of the mechanical department. At the Oxford show 
 in 1839 one gold medal was awarded for a collection of implements ; 
 three silver medals were allotted ; and a prize of five pounds was 
 given for " a paddle plough for raising potatoes." At the show at 
 Gloucest^ in 1853, 2,000 implements were exhibited. The modem 
 system of farming had, in the interval of fourteen years, built up a 
 huge industry employed in providing the agricultural implements 
 that it required. 
 
 In tilling the land, sowing, harvesting, and marketing their crops, 
 modem farmers command a choice of effective implements for which 
 their predecessors knew no substitute. Between 1837 and 1874, 
 ploughs in every variety, light in draught, efficient, adaptable to all 
 sorts of soil, were introduced. Harrows suited for different operations 
 on different kinds of land, scarifiers, grubbers, cultivators, clod- 
 crushers, came into general use. Steam supplied its motive power 
 to the cultivator (1851-6) and to the plough (1857). As an auxiliary 
 in wet seasons, or in scarcity of labour, or on foul land, or to back- 
 wardness of preparation, the aid of steam may be invaluable. But 
 few farmers can afford to own both horse-power and steam-power, 
 and without horses they cannot do. The time may, however, be 
 near at hand when agriculturists may find it not only invaluable, 
 but indispensable, to rely on an arm that never slackens, never tires, 
 and never strikes. Com and seed drills deposited the seed in 
 accurate lines, and at that uniform depth which materially promotes 
 the uniformity of sample so dear to barley growers. Rollers and 
 land-pressers consoUdated the seed-bed. Manure drills distributed 
 f^tUisers unknown to farmers in 1837. Hoise-hoes gained in 
 popularity by improved steerage gear. Crosskill's Beverley reaper 
 was followed within the next twenty years by lighter and more 
 convenient machines. Mowing machines, haymakers, horse-rakes, 
 shortened the work of the hay-field. Light carts or waggons super- 
 seded their heavy, broad-wheeled predecessors. Elevators lessened 
 the labour of the harvesters in the yard. Threshing and winnowing 
 machines had been invented in the eighteenth century. But in the 
 South of England, partly perhaps from the difficulty of supplying 
 labourers with winter work, the fiail was still almost imiversal for 
 threshing. From 1850 onwards, however, steam began to be appUed 
 as a motive power to machines, and within the next ten years 
 several makers were busily competing in the manufacture of steam- 
 
 2a 
 
370 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 driven bam-machineiy, which threshed the com, raised the straw 
 to the loft, winnowed and dressed the grain, divided it according to 
 quality, delivered it into sacks ready for market, and set aside the 
 tailings for pigs and poultry. Nor did mechanical science neglect 
 the live-stock industry, the development of which, in connection with 
 corn-growing, was a feature of the period. Here, too, machinery 
 economised the farmer's labour. He already knew the turnip-cutter 
 and the chafi-cutter ; but now the same engine which superseded 
 the flail, pumped his water, ground his com, crushed his cake, split 
 his beans, cut his chafE, pulped his turnips, steamed and boiled his 
 food. Without the aid of mechanical invention farming to-day 
 would be at an absolute standstill. No farmer could find, or if he 
 found could pay, the staff of scarce and expensive labour without 
 which in 1837 agricultural produce could not be raised, secured, and 
 marketed. 
 
 The improvements which have been indicated were not the work 
 of a day. On the contrary, during the first few years of the reign — 
 the only period passed under Protection — ^progress was neither 
 rapid nor unchecked. Farmers in general were preparing for high 
 farming ; they had not yet adopted its practices. Whatever 
 advance had been made between 1837 and 1846 was probably lost 
 in the five succeeding years. Abundant materials exist for com- 
 parison. On the one side are the Reports of the Reporters to the old 
 Board of Agriculture (1793-1815) ; and the Reports to the successive 
 Commissions (1815-36) ; on the other, there are the Reports 
 published in the early numbers of the Journal of the BoycU Agri- 
 euUural Society, the evidence given before the Select Committee 
 of 1848 on tenant-right and agricultural customs, the letters of Caird 
 to The Times in 1860-1, afterwards embodied in his English Agri- 
 culture in 1850-1, and the letters of the Commissioner to the Morning 
 Chronicle during the same period. It is plain that in 1846 no 
 universal progress had been effected ; that many landowners had 
 made no effort to increase the productiveness of their land ; that 
 high farming was still the exception ; that the new resources were 
 not yet generally utilised ; and that more than half the owners and 
 occupiers of the land had made but little advance on the ideas and 
 practices of the eighteenth century. Another period of disaster, 
 short but severe, forced home the necessary lessons, and ushered in 
 the ten years, 1853-62, which were the golden age of English agri* 
 culture. 
 
THE BEST SUBSTITUTE FOR PROTECTION 371 
 
 The railway maniaa and their collapse in 1845-7 had depressed 
 eveiy industiy. The failnie of the potato crop in 1845-6 caused 
 appaUing famine, and led to the Repeal of the Com Laws. When in 
 1846 Protection was abandoned for Free Trade, an agiicoltural 
 panic was the result. Caird's pamphlet on High Farming . . . the 
 best SvbslUvte for Protection (1848) pointed out the true remedy. 
 But for the moment he preached in the wilderness. The discovery 
 of guano and the aboUtion of the Brick and Timber Duties seemed no 
 adequate set-ofi to the anticipated consequences of Free Trade in 
 grain. Agriculturists predicted the ruin of their industry, and their 
 prophecies seemed justified by falling prices in 1848-50. Many 
 landlords and tenants had been encouraged by Protection to gamble 
 in land. Extravagant rents had been fixed, which were not justified 
 by increased produce. Caird calculated in 1850 that rentals had 
 risen 100 per cent, since 1770, while the yield of wheat per acre had 
 only risen 14 per cent. — ^from 23 to 26| bushels. In 1850 wheat 
 stood at the same price which it had realised eighty years before 
 (40s. 3d.). On the other hand, butter, meat, and wool had risen 
 respectively 100 per cent., 70 per cent., and 100 per cent. The 
 great advance which had been made was, in fact, in live-stock. 
 Competition in farms had been reckless, and the consequences were 
 inevitable when prices showed a downward tendency. Here and 
 there rents were remitted, but few were reduced, day farmers, as 
 before, were the worst sufferers ; dairy and stock farmers escaped 
 comparatively lightly. But the loss was widespread. Much land 
 was thrown on the hands of landlords, and efforts were made to 
 convert a considerable area of arable into pasture. 
 
 From 1863 onwards, however, matters rapidly righted themselves. 
 Gold discoveries in Australia and California raised prices ; trade 
 and manufacture throve and expanded ; the Free Trade panic 
 subsided ; courage was restored. The Crimean War closed the 
 Baltic to Russian com. During the " Sixties," while the Continent 
 and Amraica were at war, England enjoyed peace. The seasons 
 were uniformly favourable ; harvests, except that of 1860, were good, 
 fair, or abundant ; the wheat area of 1854, as estimated by Lawes, 
 rose to a httle over four million acres ; imports of com, meat, and 
 dairy produce supplemented, without displacing, home supplies. Even 
 the removal of the shilling duty on com in 1869 produced little effect. 
 Counteracted as it was by the demand ior grain from France in 
 1870-71, it failed to help foreign growers to force down the price of 
 
372 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 
 
 British com. Wool maintained an extraordinarily high price. 
 Lincoln wool, for instance, rose from 13d. per lb. in 1861 to 27d. 
 in 1864. Even when com began to decline in value, meat and dairy 
 produce maintained their price, or even advanced. Money was 
 poured into land as the best investment for capital. Men like Mechi 
 of Tiptree Hall, who had made fortunes in trade, competed for farms, 
 and became enthusiastic exponents of their theories of scientific 
 agriculture. Bentals rose rapidly ; yet still fanners made money. 
 Holdings were enlarged and consolidated ; farmhouses became 
 labourers' cottages ; a brisk trade was carried on in machinery. 
 High hopes were entertained of steam. Enormous and, as has since 
 been proved, excessive sums were spent on farm buildings. Drainage 
 was carried out extensively, and it was now that the general level 
 of farming rose rapidly towards the best standard of individual 
 farmers in 1837. Crops reached limits which production has never 
 since exceeded, and probably, so far as anything certain can be 
 predicted of the unknown, never will exceed. 
 
 During the period from 1853 to 1874 little attention was in 
 England paid to improvements in dairying. But in Uve-stock 
 progress was great and continuous. The advance was the more 
 remarkable as it was made in the face of outbreaks of the rinderpest, 
 pleuro-pneumonia, and foot-and-mouth diseases. Foot-and-mouth 
 disease had been more or less prevalent since 1839, and pleuro- 
 pneumonia since 1840. But the scourge of rinderpest in 1865, 
 commonly called the cattle-plague, compelled energetic action.^ 
 In stamping out the pest the two other diseases were nearly ex- 
 tinguished, so that good results flowed from a disaster which caused 
 widespread ruin. The multipUcation of shows encouraged com- 
 petition ; stock-breeding became a fashion, and " ped^ree " a 
 mania among men of wealth. 
 
 It was in cattle and sheep that the improvement was most clearly 
 marked, though neither horses nor pigs were neglected. Not only 
 did Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attain the highest standard 
 
 1 In the week ended Feb. 24, 1866, 17,876 cattle were returned as infected 
 by the disease. The Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, dated Feb. 20, 1866, 
 made the slaughter of diseased a-niTnala compulsory. The efiect was seen at 
 once. In the week ending March 3, 1866, 10,971 cattle were attacked, and 
 in the week ending March 10, 10,066 were killed. At the end of April the 
 weekly tables showed 4,442 attacked ; towards the end of May, 1,687 ; in 
 the last week of Jime, 338. In the last week of the year the number had 
 dwindled to 8. Appendix J. to Report on CtMle Plague during the yeart 1866, 
 1866, 1867 (Parliamentary Paper of 1868, Cd. 4060), p. 4. 
 
PEDIGREE CATTLE 373 
 
 of excellence in symmetry, and quality, bat other breeds, now almost 
 as well-known, were rapidly brought to perfection. Especially is 
 this true of the Aberdeen-Angus, the Sussex, Ayrshire, and Channel 
 Island breeds.^ Other breeds were similarly improved by societies 
 and the compilation of herd-books. Thus the Black cattle of South 
 Wales and the Norfolk and Suffolk Bed Polled breed have had their 
 herd-books since 1874. In sheep the improvement was, perhaps, 
 even more striking. The historic Leicesters, Cotswolds, and South- 
 downs still held their own, but other breeds made rapid strides in 
 the popular favour. The improved Lincolns, the Oxford Downs, 
 Hampshire Downs, and Shropshires are almost creations of the 
 period. Between 1866 and 1874 the number of cattle in Great 
 Britain rose from under five millions to over six millions, and sheep 
 had increased to over thirty millions in 1874. Nor was there only 
 an increase in numbers. The average quality was greatly improved, 
 and good sheep and cattle were widely distributed. 
 
 'The Shorthorn Society was fovmded in 1875: the Hereford Herd-book 
 appeared in 1846, and the Hereford Herd-book Society was incorporated in 
 1878 : the Devon Herd-book appeared in 1851. The first volume of the 
 Aberdeen- Angus Polled Herd-book was issued in 1862, and the second in 
 1872 : the Sussex Herd-book Society published its first volume (1865-78) in 
 1879 ; the Ayrshire Heid-book Society was established in 1877 and published 
 its first volume in 1878; the Englidi Herd-book of Jersey Cattle was first 
 issued in 1879, and the English Jersey Cattle Society was incorporated in 
 1883. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ADVERSITY. 1874-1912. 
 
 SnrcE 1862 the tide of agricultural prosperity had ceaaed to flow ; 
 after 1874 it turned, and rapidly ebbed. A period of depression 
 began which, with some fluctuations in severity, continued through- 
 out the rest of the reign of Queen Victoria, and beyond. 
 
 Depression is a word which is often loosely used. It is generally 
 understood to mean a reduction, in some cases an absence, of profit, 
 accompanied by a consequent diminution of employment. To some 
 extent the condition has probably become chronic. A decline of 
 interest on capital lent or invested, a rise in wages of labour, an 
 increased competition for the earnings of management, caused by 
 the spread of education and resulting in the reduction or stationary 
 character of those earnings, are permanent not temporary tendencies 
 of civilisation. So far as these symptoms indicate a more general 
 distribution of wealth, they are not disquieting. But, from time 
 to time, circumstances combine to produce acute conditions of 
 industrial collapse which may be accurately called depression. 
 Such a crisis occurred in agriculture from 1875 to 1884, and again 
 from 1891 to 1899. 
 
 Industrial undertakings are so inextricably interlaced that agri- 
 cultural depression cannot be entirely dissevered from commercial 
 depression. Exceptional periods of commercial difficulty had for 
 the last seventy years recurred with such regularity as to give 
 support to a theory of decennial cycles.^ In previous years, each 
 recurring period had resulted in a genuine panic, due as much to 
 defective information as to any real scarcity of loanable capital. 
 The historic failure of Overend and Gumey in 1866 and the famous 
 " Black Friday " aSord the last example of this acute form of 
 crisis. Better means of obtaining accurate intelligence, more 
 
 1JB.J. 1826-6, 1836-7, 1847, 1867, 1866, 1877-8. 
 
INFLATED PRICES AND RENTS 375 
 
 accessible sapplies of capital, the greater stability of the Bank of 
 England have combined with other causes to minimise the risk of 
 financial stampedes. But, though periods of depression cease to 
 produce the old-fashioned panic, they are not less exhausting. 
 Their approach is more gradual ; so also is the recovery. Disaster 
 and revival are no longer concentrated in a few months. Years 
 pass before improvement is apparent ; the magnitude of the dis- 
 tress is concealed by its diffusion over a longer period. The Eigri- 
 cultural depre^ons of 1875-S4 and of 1891-99 had all the 
 characteristics of the modem type of financial crisis. 
 
 In 1870 had begun an inflation of prices. The outbreak of the 
 Franco-German War and the withdrawal of France and Germany 
 from commercial competition enabled England to increase her 
 exports ; the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) stimulated the ship- 
 building trade ; the railway development in Germany and America 
 created an exceptional demand for coal and iron. Expanding 
 trade increased the consuming power of the population, and main- 
 tained the prices of agricultural produce. The wisest or wealthiest 
 landowners refused the temptation to advance rents on sitting 
 tenants. But in many cases rents were raised, or farms were 
 tendered for competition. Farmers became infected with the same 
 spirit of gambling which in trade caused the scramble for the 
 investment of money in hazardous enterprises. In their eagerness 
 for land they were led into reckless biddings, which raised rentals 
 beyond reasonable limits. In 1874 the reaction began. Demand 
 had returned to normal limits ; but the abnormal supply continued. 
 Over-production was the result. The decline of the coal and iron 
 trade, the stoppage, partial or absolute, of cotton mills, disputes 
 between masters and men, compUcations arising out of the Eastern 
 question, the default on the Turkish debt, disturbances of prices 
 owing to fluctuations in the purchasing power of gold and silver, 
 combined to depress every industry. In 1878 the extent to which 
 trade had been undermined was revealed by the failure of the 
 Olasgow, Caledonian, and West of England Banks. One remarkable 
 feature of the crisis was that it was not local but universal. New 
 means of communication had so broken down the barriers of nations 
 that the civilised world suffered together. Everywhere prices fell, 
 trade shrank, insolvencies multipUed. In the United States the 
 indirect consequences of the industrial collapse of 1873-4 proved to 
 be of disastrous importance to English farming. A railway panic, 
 
376 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 a fall in the price of manufactured articles, a decline in wages drove 
 thousands out of the towns to settle as agriculturists on the virgin 
 soils of the West. 
 
 English farming suffered from the same causes as every other 
 home industry. In addition, it had its own special difficulties. 
 The collapse of British trade checked the growth of the consuming 
 power at home at the same time that a series of inclement seasons, 
 followed by an overwhelming increase of foreign competition,, 
 paralysed the efEorts of farmers. For three years in succession, 
 bleak springs and rainy summers produced short cereal crops of 
 inferior quality, mildew in wheat, mould in hops, blight in other 
 crops, disease in cattle, rot in sheep, throwing heavy lands into foul 
 condition, deteriorating the finer grasses of pastures. In 1875-6 
 the increasing volume of imports ^ prevented prices from rising tO' 
 compensate deficiencies in the yield of com. The telegraph, steam 
 carriage by sea and land, and low freights, consequent on decliniog: 
 trade, annihilated time and distance, destroyed the natural monopoly 
 of proximity, and enabled the world to compete with English pro- 
 ducers in the home markets on equal, if not more favourable, terms. 
 Instead of there being one harvest every year, there was now a 
 harvest in every month of each year. In 1877 prices advanced, 
 owing to the progress of the Busso-Turkish War. But the potato- 
 crops failed, and a renewed outbreak of the cattle-plague, though 
 speedily suppressed, hit stockowners hard. The tithe rent-charge 
 was nearly £12 above its par value. Bates were rising rapidly. 
 Land-agents began to complain of the scarcity of eligible tenants- 
 for vacant corn-land. During the sunless ungenial summer of 
 1879, with its icy rains, the series of adverse seasons culminated in 
 one of the worst harvests of the century, in an outbreak of pleuro- 
 pneumonia and foot-and-mouth disease among cattle, and among 
 sheep a disastrous attack of the liver rot, which infiicted an enormous^ 
 loss on flockmasters. The English wheat crop scarcely averaged 
 16^ bushels to the acre. In similar circumstances, farmers might 
 have been compensated for the shortness of yield by an advance in 
 price. This was no longer the case in 1879. America, which had 
 enjoyed abundant harvests, poured such quantities (A wheat into 
 the country as to bring down prices below the level of the favourable 
 season of the preceding year. At the same time, American cheese 
 so glutted the market as to create a record for cheapness. Thus,. 
 * For the growth of foreign imports of food, eee Appendix VIII. 
 
FOREIGN COMPETITION 377 
 
 at the moment when English farmers were akeady enfeebled by 
 their loss of capital, they were met by a staggering blow from 
 foreign competition. They were fighting against low prices as well 
 as adverse seasons. 
 
 English farmers were, in fact, confronted with a new problem. 
 How were they to hold their own in a treacherous climate on highly 
 rented land, whose fertility required constant renewal, against- 
 prodace raised under more genial skies on cheaply rented soils,, 
 whose virgin richness needed no fertilisers ? To a generation 
 familiar with years of a prosperity which had enabled English 
 farmers to extract more from the soil than any of their foreign 
 rivals, the changed conditions were unintelligible. The new position 
 was at first less readily understood, because the depression was 
 mainly attributed to the accident of adverse seasons, and becaus& 
 the grazing and dairying districts had as yet escaped. Thousands 
 of tenants on corn-growing lands were unable to pay their rents. 
 In many instances they were kept afloat by the help of wealthy 
 landlords. But every landowner is not a Dives ; the majority sit 
 at the rich man's gate. In most cases there was no reduction of 
 rents. Remissions, sometimes generous, sometimes inadequate, 
 were made and renewed from time to time. Where the extreme^ 
 urgency of the case was imperfectly realised, many old tenants- 
 were ruined. It was not till farms were relet that the necessary 
 reductions were made, and then the men who profited were new 
 occupiers. 
 
 If any doubt still existed as to the reality of the depression,, 
 especially in corn-growing districts, it was removed by the evidence 
 laid before the Duke of Richmond's Commission, which sat from 
 1879 to 1882. The Report of the Commission established, beyond 
 possibility of question, the existence of severe and acute distress, 
 and attributed its prevalence, primarily to inclement seasons, 
 secondarily to foreign competition. It was generally realised that 
 the shrinkage in the margin of profit on the staple produce of 
 agriculture was a more or less permanent condition, and that rents 
 must be readjusted. Large reductions were made between 1880 
 and 1884, and it was calculated that in England and Wales alone 
 the annual letting value of agricultural land was thus decreased by 
 6f millions. Yet in many cases the rent nominally remained at 
 the old figure. Only remissions were granted, which were uncertain 
 in amount, and therefore disheaoiiening in effect. According to- 
 
378 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 Sir James Gaiid's evidence given in 1886, before the Boyal Com- 
 mission on Depression of T^nde, the yearly income of landlords, 
 tenants, and labourers had diminished since 1876 by £42,800,000. 
 
 The worst was by no means over. On the contrary, the pressure 
 of foreign competition gradually extended to other branches of 
 agriculture. The momentum of a great industry in any given direc- 
 tion cannot be arrested in a day ; still less can it be diverted towards 
 Another goal without a considerable expenditure of time and money. 
 Unreasonable complaints were made against the obstinate con- 
 servatism of agriculturists, because they were unable to effect a 
 costly change of front as easily as a man turns in his bed. The 
 aims and methods of farming were gradually adapted to meet 
 the changed conditions. As wheat, barley, and oats declined 
 towards the lowest prices of the century, increased attention was 
 paid to grazing, dairying, and such minor products as vegetables, 
 fruit, and poultry. The com area of England and Wales shrank 
 from 8,244,392 acres in 1871 to 5,886,052 acres in 1901.1 Between 
 the same years the area of permanent pasture increased from 
 11,367,298 acres to 15,399,025 acres. Yet before the change was 
 complete farmers once more found themselves checkmated. The 
 old adage " Down horn, up com " had once held tme. Now both 
 were down together. Till 1885 the prices of fat cattle had been 
 well maintained, and those of sheep till 1890. Both were now 
 beginning to decline before the pressure of foreign competition. 
 Up till 1877 both cattle and sheep had been chiefly sent in alive 
 from European countries. Now, America and Canada joined in 
 the trade, and the importation of dead meat rapidly increased. 
 Consignments were no longer confined to beef and pigs' meat. 
 New Zealand and the Republic of Argentina entered the lists. The 
 imports of mutton, which in 1882 did not exceed 181,000 cwts., and 
 chiefly consisted of meat boiled and tinned, rose in 1899 to 3^ million 
 cwts. of frozen carcases. The importation of cheese rose by more 
 than a third ; that of butter was doubled ; that of wool increased 
 more than two-fold. Meanwhile the outgoings of the farmer were 
 steadily mounting upwards. Machinery cost more ; labour rose in 
 price and deteriorated in efficiency. The expenses of production 
 rose as the profits felL 
 
 Some attempt was made by Parliament to relieve the industry. 
 The recommendations of the Richmond Commission were gradually 
 ^ For statistios of ckgriculture, see Appendix IX. 
 
PROLONGED DEPRESSION 379 
 
 carried into effect. Grants were made in aid of local taxation. 
 Measores were adopted to stamp out disease amongst live-stock, 
 and to protect farmers against the adulteration of feeding-stuffs, 
 and against the sale of spurious butter and cheese. The primary 
 liability for tithe rent-charge was transferred from occupiers to 
 owners (1891). The law affecting limited estates in land was 
 modified by the Settled Lands Act (1882). A Railway and Canal 
 Traffic Act was passed, which attempted to equalise rates on the 
 carriage of home and foreign produce. The permissive Agri- 
 cultural Holdings Act of 1875, which was not incorrectly described 
 as a " homily to landlords " on the subject of unexhausted improve- 
 ments, was superseded by a more stringent measure and a 
 modification of the law of distress (1883). A Minister of Agriculture 
 was appointed (1889), and an Agricultural Department established. 
 But the legislature was powerless to provide any substantial help. 
 Pood was, so to speak, the currency in which foreign nations paid 
 for English manufactured goods, and its cheapness was an undoubted 
 blessing to the wage-earning community. Thrown on their own 
 resources, agriculturists fought the unequal contest with courage 
 and tenacity. But, as time went on, the stress told more and more 
 heavily. Manufacturing populations seemed to seek food-markets 
 everywhere except at home. Enterprise gradually weakened ; 
 landlords lost their abUify to help, farmers their recuperative power. 
 Prolonged depression checked costly improvements. Drainage was 
 practically discontinued. Both owners and occupiers were engaged 
 in the task of making both ends meet on vanishing incomes. Land 
 deteriorated in condition ; less labour was employed ; less stock 
 was kept; bills for cake and fertilisers were reduced. The counties 
 which suffered most were the corn-growing districts, in which high 
 farming had won its most signal triumphs. On the heavy clays of 
 Essex, for example, thousands of acres, which had formerly yielded 
 great crops and paid high rents, had passed out of cultivation into 
 ranches for cattle or temporary sheep-runs. On the light soils of 
 Norfolk, where skill and capital had wrested large profits from the 
 reluctant hand of Nature, there were widespread ruin and bankruptcy. 
 Throughout the Eastern, Midland, and Southern counties, — 
 wherever the land was so heavy or so light that its cultivation was 
 naturally unremunerative, — ^the same conditions prevailed. The 
 West on the whole, suffered less severely. Though milk and butter 
 had fallen in price, dairy-farmers were profiting by the cheapness of 
 
380 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 grain, which was ruining their corn-growing neighbours. Ahnost 
 everywhere retrenchment, not development, was the enforced policy 
 of agriculturists. The expense of laying land down to grass was 
 shirked, and arable areas which were costly to work were allowed 
 to tumble down to rough pasture. Economy ruled in farm manage- 
 ment ; labour bills were reduced, and the number of men employed 
 on the land dwindled as the arable area contracted.^ 
 
 During the years 1883-90, better seasons, remissions of rent, the 
 fall in tithes, reUef from some portion of the burden of rates, had 
 arrested the process of impoverishment. To some extent the heavy 
 land, whether arable or pasture, which wet seasons had deteriorated, 
 recovered its tone and condition. But otherwise there was no 
 recovery. Landlords and tenants still stood on the verge of ruin. 
 Only a slight impulse was needed to thrust them over the border 
 line. Two cold summers (1891-2), the drought in 1893, the unpro- 
 pitious harvest of 1894, coupled with the great fall in prices of com, 
 cattle, sheep, wool, butter, and milk produced a second crisis, 
 scarcely, if at all, less acute than that of 1879. In this later period 
 of severe depression, unseasonable weather played a less important 
 part than before. But in all other respects the position of agri- 
 culturists was more disadvantageous than at the earlier period. 
 Foreign competition had relaxed none of its pressure ; on the 
 contrary, it had increased in range and in intensity. Nothing now 
 escaped its influence. But the great difference lay in the compara- 
 tive resources of agriculturists. In 1879 the high condition of the 
 land had suppUed fanners with reserves of fertility on which to 
 draw ; now, they had been drawn upon to exhaustion. In 1879, 
 again, both landlords and tenants were still possessed of capital ; 
 now, neither had any money to spend ia attempting to adapt their 
 land to new conditions. 
 
 In September, 1893, a Boyal Commission was appointed to enquire 
 into the depression of agriculture. The evidence made a startling 
 revelation of the extent to which owners and occupiers of land, and 
 the land itself, had been imjraverished since the Report of the Duke 
 of Richmond's Commission. It showed that the value of produce 
 had diminished by nearly one half, while the cost of production had 
 rather increased than diminished ; that quantities of corn-land 
 had passed out of cultivation ; that its restoration, while the presrait 
 prices prevailed, was economically impossible ; that its adaptation 
 1 See Census Returns of Occupations, Appendix VII. 
 
ROYAL COMMISSION OF 1893 381 
 
 to other uses required an immediate outlay which few owners could 
 afford to make. Scarcely one bright feature relieved the gloom 
 of the outlook. Foreign competition had falsified all predictions. 
 No patent was possible for the improved processes of agriculture ; 
 they could be appropriated by aU the world. The skiU which 
 British farmers had acquired by half a century of costly experiments 
 was turned {gainst them by foreign agriculturists working under 
 more favourable conditions. Even distance ceased to afford its 
 natural protection either of time or cost of conveyance, for not even 
 the perishable products of foreign countries were excluded from 
 English markets. Yet the evidence collected by the Commission 
 established some important facts. It proved that many men, 
 possessed of ample capital and energy, who occupied the best 
 equipped farms, enjoyed the greatest liberty in cropping, kept the 
 best stock, and were able to continue high farming, had weathered 
 the storm even on heavy land ; that small occupiers employing no 
 labour but their own had managed to pull through ; that, on 
 suitable soils, market gardening and fruit-farming had proved 
 profitable ; that, even on the dereUct clays of Essex, Scottish milk- 
 farmers had made a living. At no previous period, it may be added, 
 in the history of farming were the advantages and disadvantages of 
 English land-ownership more strongly illustrated. Many tenants 
 renting land on encumbered estates were ruined, because their 
 hard-pressed landlords were unable to give them financial help. 
 At least as many were nursed through the bad times by the assist- 
 ance of landowners whose wealth was derived from other sources 
 than agricultural land. 
 
 When the extent of the agricultural loss and suffering is con- 
 sidered, the rranedies adopted by the legislature seem trivial. Yet 
 some useful changes were made. Farmers were still further pro- 
 tected against adulteration of cake, fertilisers, and dairy produce 
 by the provisions of The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act (1893) 
 and the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1899). The Market Gardeners 
 Compensation Act (1895) enabled a tenant, where land was specifi- 
 cally let for market garden purposes, to claim compensation for all 
 improvements suitable to the business, even though they had been 
 effected without the consent of the landlord. The Improvement 
 of Land Act (1899) gave landowners increased facilities for carry- 
 ing out improvements on borrowed money. The amendment of 
 the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act (1896), requiring all foreign 
 
382 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 animals to be slaughtered at the port of landing, was a valuable 
 step towards preventing the spread of infection. The Agricultural 
 Bates Act (1896) and the subsequent Continuation Acts (1901, etc.). 
 though they were only paUiatives which did not settle the many 
 questions involved in the increasing burden of rates, rendered the 
 load of local taxation for the moment less oppressive. After all, 
 agriculturists received httle assistance from ParUament. They had 
 to help themselves. Conditions slowly mended. More favourable 
 seasons, rigid economy in expenses, attention to neglected branches 
 of the industry have combined to lessen the financial strain. But the 
 greatest rehef has been afforded by the substantial reduction in the 
 rents of agricultural land, which has resulted in a fairer adjustment 
 of the economic pressure of low prices as between owners and 
 occupiers. 
 
 The state of agriculture in 1901-2 has been described by a dis- 
 tinguished man of letters, who is also a practical farmer. In the 
 two portly volumes of his Rural England, Sir H. Bider Haggard 
 hafi collected a mass of evidence, gathered from what he himself 
 saw and heard in 27 coimties of England. The work is a monument 
 of physical energy and endurance. It is also a contemporary 
 record of rural facts and conditions, to which time will add historical 
 vidue. Future generations will turn to Rurai England as the present 
 generation turns to Arthur Young, or William Marshall, or James 
 Caird. Yet the situation which Sir H. Bider Haggard described 
 ten years ago has already improved. The problem of agricultural 
 labour continues to be acute ; the btirden of rural rates has doubled. 
 But no unprejudiced observer in 1912 would paint the picture of 
 farming to-day in such gloomy colours. Owing partly to the 
 reduction of rents, partly to the improvement in prices obtained for 
 agricultural produce, partly to economies in management, the 
 present financial condition of agriculture, as compared with 1901, 
 may be described as prosperous. If he were not haunted by the 
 unknown terrors of social legislation, and the consequent insecurity 
 of his tenure, a tenant-farmer might possibly admit to himself in 
 secret that his industry has not been in a sounder position for the 
 last 36 years. 
 
 Since the disasters of 1874-85, and under the continuous pressure 
 of foreign competition, agriculture has profoundly changed. A 
 loss of capital so great, a period of depression so prolonged, the 
 intrusion of so new and disturbing an element in every calculation. 
 
VARIETY m FARM PRODUCE 38$ 
 
 could scarcely fail to affect every side of farming. Yet at no time 
 daring this trying period was improvement completely arrested. 
 On the contrary, it not only continued in the old-established forms- 
 of the industry, but extended to a variety of other branches. What 
 were formerly the by-products of farming have assumed a new 
 importance. When once landlords and tenants realised that the 
 prospect of a rise in the prices of cereals was for years to com& 
 remote, and when, more slowly, they became convinced that Pro- 
 tection of food produce can never be revived on a scale which can 
 really help corn-growers, they set themselves to develop the land 
 on more varied lines. The area of corn-crops was reduced. Wood- 
 lands, which were only valued for beauty or as game covers, began 
 to be treated commercially on the principles of scientific forestry. 
 The development of the milk trade, dairying, pasture-farming, 
 flower-growing, market-gardening, poultry-keeping is characteristic 
 of the new period. The Wobum experimental fruit-farm has 
 collected a mass of tested experiments for the guidance of fruit- 
 growers. Farmers grow potatoes, brussels, and other market- 
 garden crops on their land. It is the day of small tldngs. If 
 money could no longer be made in farming, it might stiQ be saved. 
 Instead of the large stake and open-handed expenditure of the old- 
 fashioned corn-grower, there are many small stakes and a careful 
 attention to minute details. The eggs are not crowded into one 
 basket, but are distributed in many baskets. 
 
 Variety is one of the enforced improvements in modem farming ; 
 attention to detail is another ; strict economy is a third ; the 
 stoppage of leakages is a fourth. Farmers themselves have changed 
 for the hebtet as captains of industry. To-day they are for the 
 most part alert, receptive of new ideas, keenly sensible of their 
 debt to science, eager to accept its latest suggestions. In all 
 departments of agriculture it is now realised that the best produce 
 commands the readiest sale, and a more general approximation to a 
 high standard of farming may be legitimately r^arded as advance. 
 In corn-growing there is no increased production. But prices, not 
 skill and enterprise, are the chief bar to greater yields. Agriculture 
 differs essentially from manufacture. The larger the output of 
 goods, the lower the average cost of production to the manufacturer. 
 It is not so with the farmer. The bushels that are added to the 
 ordinary yield are those which are most expensive to raise and 
 increase the average cost of production. Experiments at Rotham- 
 
384 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 sted and Sawbridgeworth have shown that it is possible to grow 
 >com year after year, without rotations of crops, without stock- 
 keeping, and without deterioration of the soil. But the experiment 
 has proved to be of little practical value, because at presient prices 
 it is too costly to keep the land clean for continuous corn-growing. 
 In live-stock, improvements have been continuous, and have even 
 received a fresh impulse from the prolonged collapse of corn- 
 growing. Old breeds have been revived and brought into com- 
 petition with their established rivals ; societies and pedigree books 
 have become almost universal. Some of the most important of the 
 new foundations are the Hunter Improvement Society (1885), the 
 Suffolk Stud-book Association (1877), the Hackney Horse Society 
 (1884), the Qeveland Bay Society (1884), the Yorkshire Coach 
 Horse Society (1887) ; the Galloway Cattle Society (1877), the 
 H^hland Cattle Society (1884), the Guernsey Cattle Society (1886), 
 the Kerry and Dexter Herdbook (1890 2), the Welsh Black Cattle 
 Society (1904), the British Holstein Cattle Society (1909). Flock- 
 books were published for Shropshire Sheep (1883), Oxford Downs 
 (1889), Hampshire Downs (1890), Dorset Horns (1892) and Downs 
 <1906),Lincola8 and Cotswolds(1892),Leicester8 and Cheviots (1893), 
 Bomney Marsh (1895), Border Leicesters (1899), Welsh Mountain 
 Sheep (1905). Cross-breeding for mutton with the hardy mountain 
 breeds has been introduced into the North, and extensively prevails. 
 The popularity of polo has created a new industry. The Polo Pony 
 Society (1893) will probably develop and improve such hill and 
 mountain breeds as those of Dartmoor, Exmoor, the New Forest, 
 or Wales, all of which already have their associations or societies. 
 
 The branches of farming which had been comparatively neglected 
 in the past were naturally those in which recent improvements 
 have been most marked. To the treatment of pastures, for example, 
 increased attention has been paid since De Laune and Carruthers 
 did their pioneer work. Their management is now better under- 
 stood. In manuring grass-lands, the necessity of studying their 
 characteristic vegetation, the different needs of meadows and 
 pastures, the use of occasional liming, the value of basic slag (1883) 
 have been demonstrated, and based on scientific principles. The 
 increased importance of poultry-farming and market-gardening, 
 again, has been illustrated by the care and pains bestOAyed on their 
 improvement. In all the new as well as the old departments of 
 -farming, science and mechanical ingenuity have not stood still. 
 
THE AID OF SCIENCE 385 
 
 Both have achieved notable triumphs. It speaka volumes for the 
 energy of agriculturists that, in the face of much discouragement, 
 so much has been accomplished. It is no slight proof of their 
 practical ability that enterprise should have been so promptly 
 directed into those branches of the industry which still promised 
 profits. 
 
 In its hour of need, agriculture found in science its most useful 
 help. Over a long range of subjects science has established the 
 relations of cause and effect, reduced practice to principles, sub- 
 stituted certainties for surmises, laws for rules of thumb. Geology 
 and chemistry have given to tillers of the soil their invaluable aid. 
 Geology has taught the reasons which govern the superfluity or 
 absence of bottom water, furnished definite classifications of soils, 
 ascertained the composition of the different strata, explained the 
 principles that control their capabilities and degrees of fertility. 
 Chemistry by its analyses reveals the elements on which depend the 
 agricultural values of land, studies its mechanical condition and 
 its influence on crops, suggests how to remove differences or supply 
 deficiencies, to equalise varieties in the character of the soil, or to 
 restore its exhausted properties, analjrses fertilisers and feeding 
 stuffs, assists husbandry at every stage and in the minutest details. 
 In the Bothamsted experiments are summarised its triumphs. It 
 is a matter of national congratulation that those experiments, each 
 year more valuable from their continuity, have not been interrupted 
 by the deaths of Sir John Lawes (bom 1814) in 1900, and of Sir 
 Henry Gilbert (bom 1817) in 1901. The re-discovery of Mendel's 
 theory of heredity, first published in 1865, has opened out new 
 vistas of possibility to stock-breeders, helped to correct some of 
 the abuses of continuous in-and-in breeding, promises to fix new 
 variations, to blend useful characteristics in one type, to establish 
 new strains of live-stock. Similar experiments are being conducted 
 in the cross-fertihsation of crop and pasture plants, designed to 
 produce new types of earlier maturity, increased vigour of growth, 
 greater power to resist the attacks of insect pests or fungi, heavier 
 weight, stronger yield, better quality. Through meteorology 
 science is attempting to solve the perplexities of farmers by fore- 
 casts of the weather. It has suggested the potential capacity of 
 electricity to increase the fertility of the soil. 
 
 In the prevention, if not in the cure, of disease science has made 
 rapid advance. Veterinary skill every year prevents the loss of 
 
 2b 
 
386 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 innumerable lives of valuable animals. The ancient cow-leech is 
 superseded by practitioners, who detect bacilli almost as unerringly 
 as their medical brethren. The cause of anthrax has, at least, 
 been discovered, and a preventive suggested in inoculation ; the 
 tuberculin test provides the means of detecting latent tuberculosis 
 in cattle ; redwater has been traced to its source ; the minute 
 agent of the virus in swine-fever is revealed ; acom-rfever, which 
 proved fatal to numbers of young cattle in 1900, has been diagnosed 
 and distinguished from mere indigestion. In foot-and-mouth dis- 
 ease, the period of latency or incubation has been defined, though 
 the nature, origin, and means of transmission of the infection still 
 require investigation. In another, yet similar, direction science has 
 achieved new successes peculiarly appropriate to this day of small 
 things, when minute attention to detail often turns loss into gain. 
 Miss Ormerod (1828-1901), for many years the friend and adviser 
 of farmers on the subject of insect pests injurious to the health of 
 animals and plants, left behind her as her life-work a systematised 
 agricultural entomology, which subsequent research continues to 
 enlarge and perfect. The various kinds and infectious natures of 
 fungi which attack trees, fruit, and field or garden crops have been 
 carefully investigated. A new impulse has been given to clean 
 farming by the discovery that weeds, like docks and thistles, 
 harbour the mangold fly ; or, like dandelions or plantains, foster 
 eel-worms ; or, like charlock, house the turnip weevil, harbour the 
 finger-and-toe fungus, feed the turnip fly, and offer winter-quarters 
 to the chiysalids of the diamond-backed moth. Nor has science 
 been content only to point out the dangers ; it has suppUed farmers, 
 fruit-growers, and market gardeners with an armoury of remedies, 
 preventives, and disinfectants. From 1882, when soft soap and 
 quassia was first applied to hops, the nimiber of these weapons 
 against the insect or the fungus has rapidly multipUed. Science 
 has proved the value of formalin for the prevention of bhndness 
 in oats or smut in barley ; it has tested the use as fungicides of the 
 Bordeaux mixture and iron and copper sulphates, of arsenate of 
 lead and Paris Green as insecticides, of naphthalene for eel-worm, 
 of fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas, of spraying potatoes with 
 the Wobum Bordeaux mixture, of washing fruit-trees with the 
 Wobum Wash, of destroying charlock at an early stage of growth 
 by spraying with solutions of copper. 
 In mechanical invention innumerable improvements have been 
 
NEW IMPLEMENTS 387 
 
 effected since 1874. That America should have gained the lead 
 in this field is but another symptom of the depression of English 
 agriculture and its loss of capital. No detailed list can be attempted. 
 But, speaking broadly, progress has consisted rather ia variations 
 of old principles than in the introduction of new implements. The 
 reaper and binder is perhaps the most important of aU the mechanical 
 novelties which have been introduced during the period. Wire- 
 binders were brought over to Europe in 1873 ; but farmers and 
 millers alike protested against the use of wire as a binding material. 
 The Appleby string-binder (1878-9) removed the obstacle. Numerous 
 varieties of the machine are now in general use as one of the most 
 valuable and efficient substitutes for hand-labour. Scarifiers, 
 clodcrushers, steam diggers, cultivators, and other implements of 
 torture for the land, have been improved in different details ; in 
 every stage in the cultivation and harvesting of cereals machinery 
 has been brought to high perfection ; and the Tvel agricultural 
 motor may be the forenmner of further developments. The 
 increased importance of potatoes as a field crop is shown, not only 
 by the experiments carried on at Garforth, Kew, and Cambridge, 
 but by the invention of machines to plant and raise the produce. 
 If potato-harvesters distinguished tubers from stones, their 
 universal success would probably be assured. No substitute for 
 hand-labour in thinning or lifting root-crops has yet been brought 
 into practical use. Flockmasters have profited by the invention of 
 sheep-shearing machines. Various oil-engines have proved them- 
 selves valuable aids for aU sorts of work at the homestead. Power 
 presses (1880), though chiefly designed to compress hay and straw 
 for transport, have proved useful for storage pvuposes. Ensilage, 
 warmly advocated in 1888 as a means of saving hay crops in good 
 condition during wet and catchy seasons, has now been applied to 
 storing green fodder crops for winter keep in seasons of drought or 
 in case of the failure of roots. When originally introduced, the cost 
 of constructing silos prohibited their adoption by hard-pressed 
 farmers. Now, however, it has been found that the simpler and 
 less costly process of stacking or clamping will make excellent 
 silage. Mention must ako be made of the use of wire and corrugated 
 iron for fencing and farm buildings. Where thousands of acres of 
 land had to be adapted to new requirements the use of these materials 
 enabled poverty-stricken agriculturists to effect changes which 
 would have been impossible in more expensive materials. 
 
388 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 In the years 1837-74, improvement in all the arts of cultivating, 
 harvesting, and marketing cereals were the most distinctive feature. 
 In the later period, progress, practical, mechanical, and scientific, 
 in all the arts of managing milk produce has been most conspicuous. 
 The British Dairy Farmers' Association and its Journal (1876), the 
 British Dairy Institute, the prominence given by the Boyal Agri- 
 cultural Society and other societies to shows of dairy appliances 
 and the encouragement they have afforded to the study of the 
 subject, travelling dairy and cheese schools, the dairy schools and 
 technical classes of Agricultural Colleges and County Councils, the 
 writings and practical work of a host of experts, and, above all, 
 the absolute necessity of rivalling the skill of foreign competitors 
 in the home markets, have all contributed to a vast advance in the 
 practice and science of dairying. 
 
 Foreign methods have been carefully studied, the comparative 
 merits of the different breeds of milch cows investigated, and the 
 same labour has begun to be bestowed upon the perfection of milk- 
 ing qualities which has produced such great results in the fattening 
 quaUties of cattle and sheep. Cheese-makers will prefer one breed, 
 butter-makers another, milk-sellers a third. Yet there will always 
 be a tendency to sacrifice something of the special purpose for the 
 sake of a breed which promises to be saleable as beef when the 
 milking days are over. It is the combination of milking and 
 feeding quahties which makes the Dairy Shorthorn, whether pedigree 
 or non-pedigree, and the Ayrshires such popular favourites. As 
 butter-makers the Jerseys are probably pre-eminent. In every 
 detail of management, from the premises and the water-supply 
 down to the milkman and his utensils, the necessity of absolute 
 cleanliness has been demonstrated. It is enforced by stringent 
 legislation ; it is also based on science and common sense. No 
 product changes its character more readily than milk. If con- 
 taminated, it loses its freshness and the producer his customers. 
 Milking machines have been invented ; but owing to the difficulty 
 of cleaning the tubes, they have for the most part met with but 
 moderate success. The Lawrence-Kennedy type, both the Simplex 
 and the Duplex, has, however, succeeded both on the Continent 
 and at home. Considering the provisions of the Sale of Food and 
 Drugs Act and the Sale of Milk Regulations, and the risk of pro- 
 secutions, it is surprising that milk records of the yield of each cow 
 are not more regularly kept, and that milk is not more often tested 
 
MILK AND MILK PRODUCE 389 
 
 for hotter fat. Grood milkers are not more expensiye to keep than 
 had ; hut the difference of their yield may range between 1000 and 
 300 gallons, or less, a year. Unless the yield is recorded, the owner 
 may be ammaUy losing money by several animals in his herd. 
 Similiurly, the percentage of butter fat is of the utmost importance 
 both to the milk-seUer and the butter-maker. Without occasional 
 tests, owners do not know which of their animals are lowering the 
 average of the herd, and to what extent. On the Continent, it is not 
 uncommon for the daiiy-farmers of a district to combine and 
 contribute to the employment of a man who records and tests the 
 yields of milk at so much an animal. Similar associations have 
 been formed in Scotland for the same purpose, and County Educa- 
 tion Committees in England might well include this object among 
 the items of their expenditure. Such records are in other respects 
 valuable. Nothing is more hereditary than milking quaUty. 
 Strains of milkers, whose pedigrees were based on records of their 
 performances, must command their price. In Denmark herd- 
 books founded on this principle have been already adopted with 
 success. In England the formation of the Dairy Shorthorn Associa- 
 tion (1905) marked the establishment of a practice which is beginning 
 to spread. Such Tnilfeing herds as those of Lord Rothschild, or of 
 Messrs. Evens, Hobbs, or Watney, are already famous. 
 
 In all the processes of dealing with milk, scientific principles and 
 mechanical aids have made triumphant progress. Fifty years ago, 
 in every stage from the chum, butter was made up and prepared 
 for market by hand ; wooden utensils were in common use ; 
 separators were unknown ; thermometers were rarely employed. 
 The value of the butter largely depended on the personal element 
 in the maker. Uniform quaUty and condition were impossible ; 
 variety of both was the rule ; in winter months a regular supply 
 was difficult. It was not perhaps surprising that wholesale buyers 
 preferred the foreign products, on the uniformity of which they 
 could depend. At the present day the personal element, though 
 still all-important in the trade with private customers, is largely dis- 
 counted by the adoption of scientific rules and the use of mechanical 
 appliances. The separator has produced the greatest revolution 
 in dairy management, and ranks with the reaper and binder as 
 one of the chief novelties of the period. The principle of the 
 centrifuge, invented in 1867 for separating Uquids from such sub- 
 stances as paint, was applied to milk about 1879. It thus became 
 
390 ADVEESITY, 1874-1912 
 
 the parent of the Laval, Lefeldt, Petersen, and other varieties of 
 the separator. Improved by successive developments, it can now 
 be purchased at a third of its former cost. In its wake have followed 
 a variety of improved appUances — chums to suit every fancy, milk- 
 testers, milk-coolers, centrifugal butter driers, butter workers, 
 butter hardeners, steel pails, tin-lined utensils, down to grease- 
 proof paper, and chip or paper boxes for marketing the produce. 
 In recent years an efEort has also been made to compete with the 
 soft cheeses of foreign countries. Excellent cheeses of the type 
 of Brie, Camembert, and Gervais are now produced by English 
 dairies. If there is a weak side to all tins progress, it lies in the fact 
 that the processes of butter and cheese-making are becoming too 
 elaborate and scientific for the ordinary run of agriculturists. 
 There is certainly some risk that this branch of the farming industry 
 may become confined to creameries and associations, and that 
 wholesale dealers may refuse the products which have not come 
 from a factory. 
 
 In the science and practice of the various branches of farming, 
 progress has been great, and it has been helped by a corresponding 
 increase in the means of obtaining agricultural education. Through- 
 out the country munerous centres have been established in addition 
 to those previously in existence. Aspatria (1874), Downton (1880), 
 the University College of North Wales (1884), followed by colleges, 
 schools and institutes in South Wales, Kent, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, 
 Shropshire, and other counties, at Cambridge, Reading, Penrith, 
 Swanley, Uckfield, Chelmsford, and elsewhere, the Armstrong 
 College at Newcaatle-on-Tyne, the Cheshire Agricultural and Horti- 
 cultural Institute, the Harris Institute at Preston, the Eastern 
 Counties Dairy Institute at Ipswich, the National Fruit and Cider 
 Institute at Bristol, and similar institutions in various parts of 
 England, offer new opportunities of practical and scientific training 
 to future landlords, farmers, and land-agents. At many of these 
 centres, degrees or certificates can be obtained. Examinations for 
 National diplomas are conducted by the Boyal and Highland 
 Agricultural Societies. The admirable leaflets issued by the Board 
 of Agricidture supply the latest scientific discoveries in the shortest 
 compass, either free or at the smallest possible cost. In local ex- 
 penditure on technical education, instruction in agricultural subjects 
 is represented, and the range of the lectures and classes organised 
 by County Councils continues to extend. Instruction in forestry is 
 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 391 
 
 given at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, at the University 
 of North Wales, the Armstrong College, and in the PubUc Depart- 
 ment of Woods and Forests in Alice Holt Woods and the Forest of 
 Dean. Considerable sums are also expended by the Boards of 
 Education and of Agriculture in subvention to colleges and institutes, 
 and for the furtherance of agricultural training. 
 
 Education on a scale so varied and extensive must in the long run 
 produce results. Already its effect is visible. Unfortunately, for 
 the children of agricultural labourers Uttle or nothing is done which 
 does not xmfit them for their fathers' industry. They cannot afford 
 to attend Colleges or Institutes. Continuation and night schools 
 do not begin till the mischief is really done. What is most wanted 
 is some form of elementary instruction in rural schools adapted to 
 the needs of agriculturists. The problem is admittedly dif&ctdt. 
 Teachers, as a rule, are not interested in country life. Here and 
 there, an individual may succeed in implanting bis own rural 
 enthusiasms iq his pupils. Text-books adapted to the surroundings 
 of country children may prove a help. But the practical training 
 is still wanting. School gardens are a step in the right direction. 
 Rightly or wrongly, no effort has been made to imitate the con- 
 tinental practice of closing rural schools from hay-time to harvest, 
 and lengthening the winter hours. Whether some more suitable 
 system of elementary rural education might not have helped to 
 oheck rural depopulation may be an open question. School 
 influences alone can never attract young persons to remain on the 
 land. But at present they rather promote than discourage migra- 
 tion into towns, and farmers not unnaturally grudge the growing 
 expenditure on an education which assists in making rural labour 
 At once more scarce and less efficient. Elementary education may 
 not always produce this effect. In its present stage of transition, 
 its disturbing influences are increased by the conditions of rural 
 homes. The younger generation is better educated than the old, 
 and both are conscious of the fact. This sense of disparity fosters 
 in the chfldren a distaste for village life, and in the parents a desire 
 that the superior attainments of their children should have wider 
 opportunities than they themselves enjoyed. In another genera- 
 tion, the disparity wiU have disappeared ; the atmosphere of the 
 home will have become, it may be hoped, more educated. At this 
 later stage of its development, education may tend rather to con- 
 tentment than to discontent. It may in itself supply those fresh 
 
392 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 
 
 and endoiing sources of interest which make light of external con- 
 ditions. If this ever becomes the influence of elementary education, 
 it may help to repeople the country districts which it now tends to 
 depopulate. 
 
 The general record of English farming during the last seventy 
 years is a legitimate source of pride to all who have contributed to 
 its advance. It shows a marvellous progress in every department 
 of agriculture, effected in the face of heavy sacrifices and innumerable 
 difficulties. High farming has lost the buoyancy and enthusiasm 
 of youth ; its later years were soured by losses and disappointments ; 
 to-day, in spite of improved conditions, it views the future with 
 alarm. Whatever the future may have in store, it has made land- 
 lords and tenants better equipped to profit by prosperity or to 
 combat misfortune than they have been at any previous period of 
 history. 
 
1888 AND 1912 COMPARED 39$ 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1888 and 1912 : political agitation then and now ; the situation contrasted 
 and compared ; the position of landowners ; of titheowneis ; of tenant- 
 farmers ; tenttnt-right as a defence against sales ; agrioultoral labourers, 
 their slow progress between 1834 and 1884, and their Unions ; their 
 improved position in 1912. The problem of the future ; the reconstruction 
 of village life : the necessity of an agricultural policy : the prospect of 
 increased burdens on {Agricultural land. 
 
 Maky persons cannot conceive it possible that, even in this century 
 of rapid changes, any serious alterations in the existing systems of 
 the tenure and cultivation of English land are really inuninent. To 
 them it seems incredible that English farming can be destined, on 
 any extensive scale, to revert towards conditions out of which it 
 finally emerged in the Victorian era. They may be right or wrong- 
 in their views. On that point no opinion need be here expressed. 
 The task of sketching the story of ' ' English farming past and present' ' 
 ends with the present day. Conjectures as to the future of farming,, 
 or programmes for its reconstruction, belong rather to prophets and 
 politicians than to chroniclers. Yet the existing conditions of farm- 
 ing are already disturbed by anticipations, whether true or false, of 
 coining change. In order to complete the sketch of English farm- 
 ing down to 1912, it is, therefore, necessary to attempt a summary of 
 the present position of landlords, tenants, and labourers. 
 
 By way of contrast or comparison, four passages may be quoted 
 from the first edition of this book, published 24 years ago under the 
 title of TJie Pioneers and Progress of English Farming. At the time 
 when the book appeared, agricultiure was still sufEering from severe 
 depression. It was a middle period between the disasters of 1874- 
 1885 and those of 1891-1899. Some signs of revival had appeared ; 
 but the outlook alike for landowners, tenants, and labourers wa& 
 still gloomy. 
 
394 CONCLUSION 
 
 Many landlords had succeeded to estates which were heavily 
 encumbered by settlements, charges and mortgages, laid on in more 
 prosperous times. They could not dispose of their property, for 
 land was a drug in the market ; rates and taxes swallowed up the 
 residue of the rents which was left from interest and charges ; the 
 so-called owner had become a conduit pipe between his tenants on 
 the one side, and, on the other, his family, the mortgagees, rate- 
 collectors, and tax-gatherers. Anyone who lived in the country at 
 that period can call to mind numerous families who had curtailed 
 their expenditure, cut down their establishments, let or closed their 
 houses, or become absentees on the continent. Among farmers, 
 arrears, bills of sale, hquidations, bankruptcies kept ever in advance 
 of reductions and remissions of rent. Their numbers diminished.^ 
 Many were farming as bailiffs instead of as tenants, or were appUcants 
 for reUef from the Boyal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. Of those 
 who remained in occupation, the most capable men, who were wide 
 awake to every chance of profit, kept the master's eye upon their 
 business, and in personal expenses had cut their coats to their cloth, 
 were making farming pay ; but the majority were paying rent out 
 of capital and holding on by their eyelids in hopes of better times. 
 Labourers, as the area of corn-growing dwindled, and the labour-bill 
 was reduced to a minimum, found employment hard to get and hard 
 to keep : thrown out of work, or half employed, they crowded into 
 the towns where their El Dorado proved to be the workhouse or 
 worse. The landowner's expendable income was little or nothing, 
 the farmer's fixed rent an improvident speculation, the labourer's 
 wage uncertain and precarious. 
 
 Conditions were favourable for violent change. For the moment the 
 relations between landlord and tenant were embittered. Labourers, 
 smarting under the recent defeat of their Unions, were hostile. 
 In every direction poUtical agitators were active. Insecurity 
 paralysed recovery ; it rendiered chronic the collapse which disas- 
 trous seasons and foreign competition had produced. Many of the 
 ideas and theories of advanced reformers in 1888 differed little from 
 those of 1912 ; in language only have they become more precise or 
 definite. " Crude panaceas are in vogue at the present day ; wild 
 theories are promulgated for the redistribution of English land. In 
 the days of her commercial and agricultural supremacy, England 
 might safely ignore such demands for change. An ever-increasiag 
 ^ See Appendix VIT. " Census Returns of the Agricultural Population." 
 
EFFECT OF POLITICAL UNREST 395 
 
 prosperity postponed the shock of antagonistic interests. But now, 
 ivhen disastrous seasons and foreign competition paralyse the ener- 
 gies of agriculturists, when commerce ceases to expand with sufficient 
 rapidity to employ a growing population, land questions are not 
 merely considered with curiosity, but the exclusive privileges of the 
 few are discussed with deepening eagerness. The assailants of 
 property may be noisy out of aU proportion to their numbers ; their 
 confidence may rather proceed from ignorance than from the calm 
 of reasoned conviction ; they may have given no proof, tested by 
 success, that their schemes are feasible ; they may forget that the 
 first and worst sufierers by economic blunders are the poor ; but it 
 is idle to ignore the danger of an agitation which has already scared 
 away capital from the land, and renders chronic the enfeebled con- 
 dition of agriculture. . . . The cry is raised, and assiduously 
 encourt^ed by political leaders, that landlords are a parasitical 
 growth, a remnant of feudalism, a class that reaps what others sow. 
 The misconception is industriously fostered that England is a solitary 
 exception to the universal rule of European landholding. It is 
 maintained with increasing vehemence that God made the land for 
 the people, that land is an ager pvblicus, which the State has granted 
 to landlords to administer, but which she may at pleasure resume. 
 Men quote with approval Mirabeau's retort to the objection that he 
 could not sell the landed property of the Church — ' Not sell it ! Then 
 I will give it.' " ^ 
 
 The effect of political unrest upon the agricultural industry in 
 1888 was the same as it is at the present day. " So long as wild 
 proposals for compulsory redistribution of property received the 
 support of prominent poUticians, no landlord would expend money on 
 improvements, no capitalist, large or smaU, would invest in the 
 purchase of land, no tenant would accept a lease, no labourer would 
 put his heart into his work. While the intentions of the Legislature 
 remained dubious and threatening, land continued to be unsaleable 
 and half-farmed. Behind all legislative changes lurked the ominous 
 question of confiscation. Land may be treated as private property, 
 held so as not to prejudice the public welfare, but not to be taken 
 from owners without fair compensation ; or it may be distinguished 
 from private property, and the principles which guard private 
 property held inapplicable to land. On which line was land legisla- 
 tion to proceed ? Wild talk about State-ownership, ransom, and 
 > Pioneert and Progress of English Faming (1888), pp. 126-7. 
 
396 CONCLUSION 
 
 natoial rights, societies to nationalise the land, heroic remedies of 
 illogical half-disciples of Mr. Henry George, might be in themselves 
 of little importance. But when the air was filled with vague threats, 
 the attitude of Ministers remained studiously neutral. Agitators 
 complained of conditions which they themselves rendered chronic. 
 Meanwhile the continued insecurity was rapidly producing results 
 which threatened the subversion of rural sbciety. Fortunately the 
 example has been recently given that a patriotic fusion of political 
 parties for the promotion of national interests is yet possible in 
 party government. That restoration of confidence, which is the 
 indispensable preliminary to agricultural revival, seems already to 
 have begun, and to bear fruit in renewed energy. Arguments 
 urged agajnst the artificial creation of a peasant proprietary scarcely 
 apply to their natural growth. . . . Socially the advantages of a 
 class of peasant owners are indisputably great. The rural economy 
 of the nation would benefit by the diffusion of land ownership, and 
 farming ofEers no exception to the rule that two strings to the bow 
 are better than one. If legislation is only invoked to remove arti- 
 ficial aids to the aggregation of large estates, the process will not 
 foster that sense of insecurity which has paralysed the energies of 
 landlords, and rendered chronic the enfeebled state of agriculture. 
 Already signs appear of a tendency towards the multipUcation of 
 small tenant-farmers, if not of small owners. Small holdings 
 obstructed progress so long as capital was required for the re- 
 clamation, enclosuie, drainage, and equipment of land. But at 
 the present day this argument loses much of its force. So again, 
 while England depended for grain on home supplies, com could be 
 produced more economically on large farms. Now, when prices 
 render its home production unremunerative, and foreign supplies 
 are adequate to our wants, another argument for large farms is at 
 least modified. Small farmers, content with small profits, depend- 
 ing on gardens, Uve-stock, and dairies, commanding the unpaid 
 labour of their own families, may make both ends meet, where larger 
 capitalists go through the Court. If agriculture is tending in this 
 direction, legislation must remove all hindrances to its natural 
 coiuse ; landlords are sufficiently aUve to their own interests to do 
 the rest." ^ 
 
 In 1888 the country seemed to be standing on the verge of some 
 great change. The development of high farming had been arrested 
 I Pioneera and Progress 0/ Bnghth Farming (1888), pp. 170-180. 
 
SMALL HOLDINGS IN 1888 397 
 
 partly by nnremuiierative prices, partly by the unsolved problem of 
 securing to tenants the unexhausted value of their own improve- 
 ments, partly by the general want of confidence which political 
 uncertainties had greatly encouraged. Large farms went begging 
 for occupiers. Agriculture with its new risks of pecuniary 
 loss, and its modem drudgery of close economy in manage- 
 ment, of minute attention to details, and constant personal 
 supervision, had ceased to attract men who possessed from 
 £5,000 to £10,000 in capital. In these circumstances it seemed 
 probable that, where landlords could command the money 
 ior the initial outlay, they might with profit discard steam- 
 ploughs and make spades trumps. As an alternative to 
 allowing arable land to pass out of cultivation, and so in- 
 «reasiiig agricultural unemployment, the multipUcation of small 
 holdings, on suitable soils, in suitable districts, and in suitable hands, 
 seemed to be a sound business proposition. Experience already 
 showed that small farms were easier to let than large. They com- 
 manded higher rents ; they were better adapted to reduced capital, 
 more suited to new conditions. Socially and poUticaUy, as weU as 
 economically, the establishment of closer relations between land and 
 labour was advantageous. "A peasant proprietary increases the 
 number of those who have something to lose and nothing to gain by 
 revolution, encourages habits of thrift and industry, gives the owner 
 of land, however small his plot, a stake in the country, and a vested 
 interest which guarantees his discharge of the duties of a citizen. 
 Combined with the partage ford, it checks population, for la plupart 
 des Normands n'ontpas lu McMhus, maie ilspratiquent instinctivement 
 see conseila. ... It affords a training to the rural population for 
 which we in England have found no substitute. It checks the 
 centralisation of pauperism, the overgrowth of population, and the 
 migration into towns. The element of stability which it contributes 
 to the State is more valuable to the French than ourselves. There 
 the towns are inflammable as touchwood, while the country ignites 
 more slowly. Yet even here it is useful to have a class of slow- 
 thinking men, who will answer poUtical firebrands with Cela est bien, 
 mats ilfavt cuUiver notre jardin." ^ 
 Moreover, the movement of replacing the peasantry on those parts 
 
 » Pioneers and Progrese of Engliah Farming (1888), p. 138. For details aa 
 to peasant proprietors and the departments in France where they thrive or 
 do not exist, see the writer's Pleatant Land of France (1908). 
 
398 CONCLUSION 
 
 of the land to which their industry is specially adapted would have 
 gone far to satisfy their legitimate aspirations. Their memories 
 are tenacious. Deeply hidden in the recesses of the labourer's 
 mind lurk vague and often misunderstood traditions of the past 
 conditions of rural life. He knows that he is tilling land as a wage- 
 earner, which his forefathers farmed as occupiers. He does not 
 realise that the change has been only a part of a great industrial 
 revolution which affected manufacture as well as agriculture. In 
 the multipUcation of small holdings there also lay the opportunity 
 of mitigating the most depressing influences of his present position 
 and future prospects. " Speaking generally, the worst aspects of 
 his life at the present moment are the decreasing demands for agri- 
 cultural labour, the absence of any reasonable prospect of emerging 
 from the condition of hired service, and the pauper allowance 
 which rewards the most industrious career. Some readjustment 
 between the demand and supply for labour, some social ladder, and 
 some better provision against old age are the true needs of the agri- 
 cultural poor. So far from reheving the glut of labour, the new 
 departure in the practice of farming will still further congest the 
 market. Economical management and increased breadths of grass, 
 whether permanent or temporary, mean a reduction of working 
 expenses, which wiU take the form, not of less wages, but of less 
 employment. Emigration affords the only other outlet for the 
 excess of the labour supply." ^ 
 
 Comparing the position of 1888 with that of 1912, it is obvious that 
 there are resemblances as well as differences. Generally speaking, 
 the problems remain the same ; time has only accentuated some 
 and modified others. The great contrast between the two periods 
 lies in the partial recovery of agriculture from acute depression. 
 The great resemblance consists in the paralysing effect of the un- 
 certainty of the political outlook, which is infinitely more menacing 
 than in 1888. Were confidence once restored, the conditions of 
 farming, given favourable seasons, might warrant anticipations of 
 a considerable revival of the industry. 
 
 The lapse of a quarter of a century has considerably changed 
 the relative positions of the three agricultural classes. To many of 
 them the depression of 1888 brought ruin. Of those who sur- 
 vived, it meant to landlords a substantial reduction in the standard 
 of living, to farmers a deprivation of comforts, to labourers a loss 
 I Pioneers and Progress of English Farming (1888), p. 226. 
 
POSITION OF LANDOWKERS 399 
 
 of necessaries. In actual money, labourers suffered least ; but 
 standing, as they do, nearer the border-line of starvation, it is 
 probably true that they also suffered most. At the present day^ 
 farmers have improved their position ; labourers, in spite of the 
 recent rise in the price of provisions, are better ofi ; for landlords 
 alone, although agricultural land readily commands both tenants 
 and purchasers, the general conditions have materially changed 
 for the worse. Financially crippled by recent taxation, land- 
 lords are assailed with increasing vehemence. The attack upon 
 the system of land-temure which they represent derives fresh 
 strength from the poverty to which they are reduced by increased 
 taxes. They have not the command of money necessary either to- 
 give fair play to the system or to supplement it by creating small 
 tenancies. At the same time, the attack is no longer aimed at 
 them only as representatives of a system or as members of a class. 
 The personal element is introduced ; venomous tongues attempt 
 to poison the crowd against them as individuals. Courage in the 
 face of odds has always characterised the landowning classes. 
 They weathered the storm of 1888 ; they may " muddle through " 
 the present crisis with equal success. Their prospects would be 
 brighter, if they were more aUve to the reality of their position. 
 Men are beginning to ask how many owners of land have 
 troubled to master the intricacies of the undeveloped land duty, 
 of the single tax, or of site values ; or have made themselves 
 competent to explain their injustice, their fallacies, and their effects 
 on rural districts. They are already wondering why landowners, 
 up to the present moment, have formulated no alternative policy, 
 and why they are still disunited, and still unable to agree on any 
 concerted action. To most onlookers, it would seem the part of 
 ordinary prudence, without further loss of time, to frame a compre- 
 hensive progranmie of land reform on broad and generous lines, 
 while maintaining the principle that private ownership is the only 
 satisfactory system for progressive land-cultivation. 
 
 Owners of agricultural land in England are numerically few. No 
 doubt the paucity of their mmibers in times past enhanced their 
 social position, as well as their power and influence. To-day it is 
 a peril to stand where many envy and few sympathise. For many 
 years in our history, landowners, as a class, took the most active 
 part in the politics of the country, and conducted the whole adndnis- 
 trative work of rural districts. They do not do so to-day. It may 
 
400 CONCLUSION 
 
 be contended that, either from poverty, from want of leisure, or 
 from disinclination, they have, as a class, ceased to bear the burden of 
 political life, or undergo the irksome drudgery of local administration. 
 Instances may be urged to prove that their local influence has 
 dwindled to a vanishing point. Where individual members of the 
 class retain it, they exercise it as men rather than as landowners. 
 Yet the weight which such men possess in their own districts 
 suggests that the leadership is still open to those who care to earn 
 it. Even in agricultural matters, the lead has to a great extent 
 passed out of their hands. Up to 1889, all the improvements in 
 English fanning which at one time had gained for this country an 
 imdisputed supremacy in the art and practice of agriculture were 
 effected by private capital, by individual enterprise, by personal 
 initiation. Landlords were the pioneers of improvement. Now the 
 State, for good or for evil, itself undertakes much of the control 
 and expenditiu:e which formerly fell to the landowning class. This 
 transference of responsibility from private persons to the public 
 department of the Board of Agriculture has undoubtedly borne 
 excellent fruit. No one denies its advantages. That is not the 
 point. Its establishment may be construed as an important reversal 
 of an old ideal, an acknowledgment by landlords of their partial 
 defeat, a tacit admission of the fact that our existing land-system 
 ■can no longer supply from its own resources the capital and direction 
 required for the organisation of the industry.^ Private property in 
 land is not so exceptional in its nature as to make its tenure 
 legally assailable. But the moral title-deeds by which some of it is 
 held are not, historically, without a flaw ; and no prescriptive rights, 
 according to the modem reading of an ancient maxim, can be 
 acquired against the People. The possession of land has for hun- 
 dreds of years been honourably associated with the unpaid discharge 
 of laborious public duties. If this association of service with 
 privilege should be in any way weakened, the danger arising from 
 the isolated position of landowners would be magnified, because 
 substance and colour would be given to the allegation that land- 
 owners are a parasitic growth which should be eradicated in the 
 interests of national progress. 
 
 It is alleged that, as a class, landowners are more ready than they 
 once were to stand aloof trom the strenuous political life of the 
 
 1 See this danger pointed out in the author's article on " An Agricultural 
 Department" in the Nineteenth Century for April, 1889. 
 
THE WANT OP CAPITAL 401 
 
 community, more willing to acquiesce in the loss of control over local 
 affairs. If this is true, and if only a decreasing minority are still 
 prepared to sacrifice their leisure and amusements to the discharge 
 of pubUc duties, it is an unhealthy, if not a dangerous, symptom. 
 Something of the same apathy is certainly visible in the management 
 of many estates. Much ought to be done, which is left undone, 
 to put land to its most profitable use and to adapt its equipment to 
 the requirements of diversified farming. The impoverishment of 
 landowners by the new burden of taxation, which not only cripples 
 their incomes but cuts into their capital, is undoubtedly the main 
 cause of the neglect. They have not the money with which to make 
 the necessary changes. To say this, however, is only to say that 
 the modem system of farming has broken down in one of its most 
 essential features. 
 
 Intensive cultivation means the expenditure on the land either 
 of more money or of more labour. The Uberal apphcation of capital 
 to land by both owner and occupier was one of the ideals at which 
 high farming aimed from the close of the eighteenth century onwards. 
 Landlords spent their money hberaUy on the up-to-date equipment 
 of their land with houses, farm-buUdings, cottages, drainage, 
 fences, roads ; mainly by their expenditure, directly or indirectly, 
 prairie land has been converted into agricultural land. Tenants 
 hired the use of all this capital at the moderate rate of interest which 
 is represented by the rent, and spent their own money generously 
 in working their fanns so as to obtain the largest possible return. 
 So long as both parties were able to do their part, and so long as 
 prices were remunerative, the system profited both. The nation 
 also benefited by the increased amount and lessened cost of pro- 
 duction. But during the last half of the reign of Queen Victoria, 
 the rapid decline in the value of agricultural produce caused the 
 collapse of the system. Both partners lost a large part of their 
 capital. Prolonged depression compelled landlords to practise 
 economies themselves and to acquiesce in the economies of their 
 tenants. The land has suffered and is still suffering. Thousands of 
 acres of tillage and grass-land are comparatively wasted, under- 
 farmed, and undermanned. Countries, whose climate is severer 
 than our own, and in which poorer soils are cultivated, produce far 
 more from the land than ourselves. The gross receipts per cultivated 
 acre in Great Britain have been calculated at only one-fifth of those 
 of Belgium, and two-thirds of those of Denmark. 
 
 2c 
 
402 CONCLUSION 
 
 In these circumstances the demand is made that the other form 
 of intensive cultivation should have its chance. If intensive 
 capital is not forthcoming, let intensive labour try its hand on 
 smaller areas. But here again landlords are in a dilemma. Whether 
 the existing system is to be developed, or whether, in favourable 
 situations, an extensive trial is to be made of the new, money is 
 equally needed. Private lenders are suspicious of land as a security, 
 and owners themselves are shy of adding by further investments on 
 their land to the spoils of those who propose to tax them out of 
 existence. They are naturally timid of depositing all their eggs in 
 one rickety basket, the bottom of which may at any moment be 
 pulled out. They might borrow from the State ; but the State, 
 instead of assisting them to revive the old system or to make trial 
 of the new, exercises its ingenuity in devising fresh schemes for 
 their further impoverishment. The deadlock thus produced may 
 be profitable to politicians ; but the drain on the national resources 
 caused by its continuance is great, and the loss which is inflicted 
 on both tenant-farmers and wage-earning labourers is daily increas- 
 ing. Meanwhile, unless impoverished landlords can obtain State 
 assistance, their only resource is to sell their estates. Where this 
 course is adopted, the interests of tenant-farmers axe often seriously 
 prejudiced. A sale forces them to adopt one of two courses. If 
 they buy the land they occupy, they strip themselves of their working 
 capital. If their farms are sold over their heads, they risk a still 
 heavier loss. Purchase is the lesser of two evils. But, when the two 
 alternatives are presented, they also stand in need of State assistance, 
 which win enable them to borrow the whole purchase-money at 
 moderate rates, and repayable by annual instalments. 
 
 Besides the ordinary landlords, there is another class of owner 
 whose position is serious. Clerical tithe-owners are threatened with 
 the same general dangers as lay landowners, and they have besides 
 their own special risks from the possible disendowment of the 
 Church in England. They are powerless to sell. They can, at 
 present, only await events. Yet in more stable and more prosperous 
 times, it might have been possible to suggest an arrangement for 
 tithe redemption which, with the help of the legislature, would be 
 advantageous alike to them, to the tithe-payer, and to the community. 
 The experiment might have been tried in Wales. As an alter- 
 native to the proposed disendowment, it is a policy which would 
 go far to satisfy some of the parties concerned. It would benefit 
 
THE POSmON OF TITHE-OWNERS 403 
 
 Welsh landloids, Welsh Ohurchmen, and the Welsh urban and rural 
 population. It would remove the reluctance of many earnest 
 Nonconformists to cripple the cause of Christianity by appro- 
 priating to Caesar property dedicated to the service of Grod. 
 Educationally and morally, 50,000 acres of land contiguous to the 
 towns and villages of Wales would be of greater value than a wilder- 
 ness of museums. It would be absurd to attempt to foretell the 
 future price of com. But probabiUties seem to point to a gradual 
 rise. On the other hand, for many years to come, the prospect of 
 an approximation to par-value appears remote. Here there is 
 room for compromise in settling the figure at which the net annual 
 value of the charge, after deducting the necessary outgoings, should 
 be redeemed. If this figure could be agreed upon, landowners might 
 be encouraged to extinguish the whole tithe issuing from their land 
 in the parish by the surrender of the acreage of land required to 
 produce the same net annual income which is now derived from the 
 rent-charge. Care should be taken that the land so surrendered 
 is near the village. Otherwise the main advantage to the community 
 would be lost. The amount of land thus rendered available cannot 
 be accurately estimated till the figure is agreed ; but the total area 
 would not be less than 2^ million acres. It is not suggested that 
 tithe-owners should be transformed into landowners. The process 
 of redemption would be gradual, not simultaneous. It would be 
 put in operation whenever pubhc bodies required to buy land for 
 small holdings or village reconstruction, and the purchase money 
 would be paid over to a church body, constituted on the lines 
 adopted in Ireland. Present conditions are favourable to such a 
 transaction. The price of land enables owners to extinguish the 
 rent-charge by the surrender of a reasonable acreage, and the low 
 price of Consols enables investors to obtain a larger interest on 
 their money. 
 
 Landlords and tenants are confronted with a common danger. 
 They stand or fall together. Tenant-farmers have nothing to hope 
 for from theoretical land-reformers. The most they can expect 
 from the single tax is a rise of rents and an increased number of 
 sales. Neither of these changes would be acceptable to a class of 
 men who, in spite of their traditional pose as licensed grumblers, 
 would rather remain as they are. 
 
 As compared with 1888, tenant-farmers have improved their 
 position. From one point of view this might not appear to be the 
 
404 CONCLUSION 
 
 case. At the earKer period they were masters of the situation. The 
 land was begging for them, not they for the land. They had a 
 large choice of holdings, and on their own terms. But mastery of a 
 half-bankrupt situation was worth little. To-day, though the 
 demand for farms exceeds the supply, they are better off. In the 
 general conduct of their business, the old difficulties continue ; some 
 have even increased in seriousness. The pressure of foreign com- 
 petition, for example, shows no sign of slackening ; labour has 
 deteriorated in quality ; boys are hard to find ; railway rates require 
 revision ; local taxation, which embraces such imperial objects as 
 education, police, and main roads, has risen so greatly that it 
 has already neutralised the advantages of the concession of partial 
 exemption. But worse in its effects than these known evils is the 
 uncertainty of their tenure produced by recent legislation and by 
 the threat of more drastic measures. 
 
 For many years, the most distiu:bing element in the relations 
 between landlord and tenant was the difficulty of securing to 
 the tenant the unexhausted value of improvements effected by his 
 own capital. The question has been again brought into prominence 
 in an altered form by the attack on the position of landlords. 
 
 As soon as high farming began, tenant-right, in one shape or 
 another, became an absolute necessity. But landlords and the 
 legislature were slow to recognise the need. If tenants were to be 
 encouraged to invest their capital in the land, they must in justice 
 receive some security for their outlay. At law they had no more 
 than the mediaeval farmer who spent nothing on his holding. The 
 law presumed that everything done to, or put into, the soil became 
 the property of the landowner, who by adding to the rent the annual 
 value of the tenant's outlay could appropriate it to his own profit. 
 Exceptions to the legal presumption were established by the growth 
 of customs of the country. But the protection thus afforded varied 
 in amount, and even in its strongest forms was inadequate. It 
 was therefore generally realised that the law must be modified, if 
 not reversed, either by special agreement or by conferring on tenants 
 a statutory right of property in their own improvements. 
 
 The necessary outcome of the changing conditions of modem farm- 
 ing was recognised in 1843, when Lord Portman failed to obtain 
 legal security for a tenant's expenditure of capital on improvements. 
 Philip Pusey in 1847 waa equally unsuccessful. His Bill was, how- 
 ever, referred to a select Committee of the House of Commons. 
 
TENANT-FARMERS AND TENANT-RIGHT 405 
 
 Evidence was offered, not only on the harshness with which the legal 
 presumption operated, but on the small degree of protection afforded 
 by existing customs . It appeared that in most districts no allowance 
 could be claimed for such permanent improvements as drainage, or 
 for those of a durable character like marling, liming, claying, or 
 burning, or for those which were more temporary in their nature, 
 such as the use of purchased manures, or the consumption on the 
 land of oU-cake and other feeding-stuSs. In 1850 legislation was 
 again refused. For twenty years the subject slumbered in Parlia- 
 ment. Meanwhile, outside the House, the question was rapidly 
 becoming a burning one, and the foundation of the Central and 
 Associated Chambers of Agriculture in 1866 gave strength and 
 cohesion to the opinion of agriculturists. At last the principle was 
 recognised in the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875. Though the 
 measure, from its optional character, was only indirectly effectual, 
 it proved the starting-point of future legislation. To men of that 
 generation compulsion was stiU unfamiliar. They thought it more 
 essential to preserve freedom of contract, and it was on this ground 
 that notable agriculturists, like Albert PeU,^ resisted the compulsory 
 recognition of tenant-right. 
 
 Since 1875 legislation has been active in securing to tenants the 
 right to recover, as compensation for any improvements legally 
 made by them on their holdings, the full remaining unexhausted 
 value of those improvements. To-day farmers are practically safe- 
 guarded for their outlay by custom, agreements, and Acts of ParUa- 
 ment. They are generally satisfied with the conditions of their 
 tenancy, and ask nothing better than its continuance . But, recently, 
 the break-up and sale of large estates, and compulsory acquisitions 
 of land by public bodies under the Small Holdings Act, have rendered 
 the holdings even of the best and most valued tenants insecure. 
 In these new circumstances, the demand for another form of com- 
 pensation haa been revived. It is urged that, in addition to the 
 claims already conceded, farmers should be entitled to compensation 
 for continuous good farming in excess of the standard which tenants 
 are bound to maintain. The proposal bristles with practical 
 difficulties. In the tenant's own interest, it is doubtful whether it 
 would be wise to impose upon a landlord a new and uncertain burden. 
 Wherever an estate is mortgaged, more land would be forced upon 
 the market, and in self-defence every landlord would-be driven to 
 I The BeminUcence» of AVbeH Peg (1908), p. 280. 
 
406 CONCLUSION 
 
 raise rents to their commercial, competitive level, and to reduce his 
 expenditure on repairs and improvements. It is also practically 
 impossible either to draw any definite line between the tenant's 
 common law obligation to farm in a husbandlike manner and the 
 continuous good farming which surpasses that standard, or to 
 establish any permanent starting-point from which the increase or 
 decrease in the letting value of the land, due to the tenant's good or 
 bad cultivation, can be accurately measured. For this latter purpose 
 it has been suggested that the optional record of condition provided 
 by the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, might sufl&ce, if made com- 
 pulsory. Apart from the difficulty created by the yearly deprecia- 
 tion of the value of the evidence, and the expense of keeping it up 
 to date by intermediate inventories, the record would be a two- 
 edged weapon. Farmers do not press for its introduction with any 
 enthusiasm or unanimity. They themselves are probably the best 
 judges, whether they will, as a class, gain or lose most by a measure 
 of valuation for the deterioration, as well as the improvement of 
 their holdings. It would be far more to their advantage that, 
 when faced with the alternative of buying or losing their farms, they 
 should be able to obtain from the State on easy terms the whole of 
 the money necessary to effect the purchase. If the loan took the 
 form of a reducible mortgage, repayable by annual instalments, and 
 secured by the right of levying a distress for arrears, there would be 
 httle fear of any loss by the lender. No public loan of any magnitude 
 would be immediately required for the purpose. Tenants do not 
 want to buy so long as they can continue to rent under a good private 
 landlord. Unless threatened legislation assumes a form which 
 greatly accelerates the present progress of sales, the sum annually 
 needed would be small. The funds accumulating in the hands of 
 the Insurance Commissioners would supply any demand which 
 may reasonably be anticipated. 
 
 The interests of agricultural labourers apparently conflict with 
 those of their employers. They want high wages and low prices : 
 their employers want high prices and low wages. But the anta- 
 gonism shades off into some identity of interest, for low prices mean 
 less employment or reduced earnings. Agricultural labourers, like 
 landlords and tenant-farmers, suffer from the present political 
 uncertainty and its consequences. If an estate is sold and a farm 
 changes hands, their employment, their wages, and their homes are 
 endangered. Materially, they are without doubt better off than in 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS 407 
 
 1888, though their conditions are still capable of improvement. 
 But their prosperity in 1912 is quite a different kind of prosperity 
 from that which they enjoyed in the simpler and more leisured 
 eighteenth century. Up to that time, the picture, drawn in the 
 first chapter, of life in the self-supporting village still held true in 
 many essential features. In remote rural districts, changes were 
 slow and few. Suddenly, from 1760 onwards, over the whole 
 of society swept the great industrial expansion. Domestic handi- 
 craftsmen and small farmers alike were overwhelmed : industry, 
 both manufacturing and agricultural, was reorganised on the new 
 commercial lines which seemed best adapted for the greatest possible 
 production at the least possible cost. The completion of the work of 
 enclosure destroyed the inherited traditions of the peasantry, their 
 ideals, their customs, their habits, their ancestral solutions of the 
 problems of life, — all, in fact, that made up the native home-bred 
 civilisation of rural England. With the disappearance of the primi- 
 tive framework of village Ufe, vanished — ^for a time at any rate — 
 many of the virtues of the class, their independence, pride, frugaUty, 
 self-control. It is not surprising that for at least half a century they 
 should have remained stupefied by the shock, gradually realising 
 the full meaning of the change, and then either stoUdly acquiescing 
 in their new existence, or impatient to escape on the first opportunity. 
 Without a return to an extinct social and industrial system, the old 
 conditions cannot be entirely rebuilt for them any more than they 
 can be for other classes. The most that can be done is to revive as 
 far as possible the best f eatiures of a form of life which has passed 
 away and cannot be completely restored. 
 
 From 1815, the moral, social, and probably the material, position 
 of the agricultural labourer rapidly declined. He became more and 
 more exclusively dependent on money wages,^ and these, though 
 increased by pauper allowances, feU lower and lower every year 
 after the peace. The Poor Law of 1834 marks the starting-point in 
 the recovery. But the story of the slow steps by which labourers 
 have climbed from the depths into which they had been plunged is 
 a chequered record. For more than thirty years, wages had been sup- 
 plemented from the rates, all the year round, whether the recipient 
 was employed or not. Men with families had received allow- 
 
 * See Appendix X. for weekly payments in cash. Calculations of agricultural 
 wages must always be used with the utmost caution, and merely as general 
 approximations to the facte. 
 
408 CONCLUSION 
 
 ances, at their own homes, proportioned to the number of their 
 children. After 1834 parish relief was only given in workhouses, 
 where husband and wife were separated. It was no longer the duty 
 of the parish to find work or to provide means of subsistence ia aid 
 of wages. The change entailed no small degree of sujffering, not only 
 on the sick and aged, but on the able-bodied. Relatively to the 
 demand for labour, there was a superabundant population, which 
 the old administration of the Poor Law had encouraged, and the 
 disproportion between supply and demand was increased by a 
 considerable extension of the use of machinery on the land. Em- 
 ployment was hard to get, and wages remained extraordinarily low. 
 In the Northern Counties and the Midlands, the great industrial 
 expansion and the rapid development of railways relieved the 
 pressure. Without their assistance it is doubtful whether the Poor 
 Law could ever have been brought into operation. Elsewhere ia 
 England, migration or emigration seemed the only resource. 
 
 Wages, reduced to a minimum, fluctuated with the rise or fall in 
 the prices of necessaries. Years must necessarily pass before the 
 glut in the rural labour-market could be absorbed. But the process 
 of adjusting the relations between demand and supply was delayed by 
 a new form of competition with adult male labour. In the increased 
 employment of women and children in the fields, which had become 
 a necessity ia order to supplement the family income, employers 
 found a new supply of labour which to some extent neutralised any 
 tendency of wages to rise. It was in these circumstances that the 
 problem of raising wages by indirect means began to occupy the 
 attention of Parliament. NaturaUy men's minds turned to allot- 
 ments, which by their name perpetuate the compensation, often 
 sold before the award was signed, allotted to claimants of rights of 
 common. In 1796 a society had been formed " for Bettering the 
 Condition of the Poor " by means of these field-gardens. In 1819, 
 1831, and 1832 Acts of Parliament had been passed enabling the 
 Poor Law authorities or the parish to provide parish farms or 
 allotments. Sufficient use of these powers had been made to justify 
 the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834 in reporting the failure of 
 parish farms and the success of allotments. Further evidence was 
 offered before the Select Committee on Labouring Poor (Allot- 
 ments of Land). Their Report (1843), and those of the Poor Law 
 Commissioners (1842-1843), show that the acreage devoted to 
 allotments was increasing in most of the agricultural counties, and 
 
SLOW RISE OF WAGES 409 
 
 that their extension was to the economic and moral advantage of 
 the labourer. It was calculated that the net profit from the produce 
 of a quarter of an acre of land added 2s. a week to wages. In 
 addition to money made, there was money saved. Men spent less 
 at the pubUc-house, and were less dependent on the shopkeeper for 
 their provisions. Morally there was an added feeling of independence 
 and self-respect. Hard though the men worked after their day's 
 labour, their toil was more of a recreation than a task, because it 
 was bestowed on land which they themselves occupied. 
 
 In 1846 came the repeal of the Com Laws. In its first efEects, 
 Free Trade was not favourable to agricultural labourers. Wages 
 were lowered, and food prices did not fall sufficiently to counter- 
 balance the loss. In the first impulse of despair at the anticipated 
 effects of the loss of Protection, many tenants threw up their hold- 
 ings. Much land was unlet. Employment became more and more 
 difficult to obtain. The years 1849 to 1853, which immediately 
 preceded the Crimean War and the era of agricultural prosperity, 
 were a period of severe depression. Economy of production was 
 necessarily the aim of employers. They naturally applied to their 
 own business the Free Trade maxim, " Buy ia the cheapest market ; 
 sell in the dearest." More machinery was introduced on the land. 
 Small farms were thrown together. There was no diminution in 
 the number of women and children employed ; the gang system, 
 both public and private, prevailed extensively in the Eastern 
 Counties ; the supply of labour was still largely in excess of the 
 demand. The competition of female and child labpur continued to 
 depress wages. It was not till some control of the gang system was 
 established by the Gangs Act of 1867, and the employment of children 
 regulated by the Education Acts of 1870, 1873, and 1876, that 
 employers were deprived of the cheapest forms of labour. They 
 were, therefore, driven to employ a larger number of adult males. 
 But the population of rural districts still remained superabundant, 
 in spite of a constant stream of emigration, and wages advanced 
 little and slowly. 
 
 PubUc opinion was beginning to realise the unsatisfactory 
 position of agricultural labourers. Reports from Medical Officers of 
 Health on the food, housiog, and sanitary conditions of rural districts 
 aroused new feelings of sympathy. The men themselves began to 
 entertain the idea of combining to enforce remedies. Between 1865 
 and 1871, in Scotland, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Here- 
 
410 CONCLUSION 
 
 fordshire, unions were fonned. The ground was thus gradually 
 prepaj%d for a movement which, when once started, spread with 
 surprising rapidity. On February 7th, 1872, a trade union of 
 agricultural labourers was founded at Wellesboume in Warwickshire 
 by Joseph Arch. The tinder was ready, and the spark was struck. 
 By the end of the following month, 64 branches had been organised 
 in Warwickshire alone. In May a Congress, attended by delegates 
 from many parts of the country, was held at Leamington, at which 
 the National Agricultural Labourers' Union was formed, and Arch 
 elected to be the first president. The prime objects of the new 
 organisation were to raise wages, shorten hours, abolish payments in 
 kind, regulate the employment of women and children, increase 
 the number of moderately rented allotments. In other respects it 
 made a new departure. Up to 1878, trade unions of the ordinary 
 type had confined themselves to the improvement of industrial 
 conditions. From the first, the Agricultural Union included political 
 and social reforms. It demanded not only the parUamentary 
 franchise for agricultural labourers, but changes in the land laws, the 
 disestabUshment of the Church, enquiries into charitable endow- 
 ments, the creation of peasant ownerships. It also introduced new 
 weapons which were not employed by trade unions of the industrial 
 type. It spent considerable sums of money in transferring labourers 
 from congested districts to counties where there was a greater 
 demand for labour both on land and in factories. By its aid also, in 
 the first nine years of its existence, 700,000 persons emigrated to the 
 British Colonies and elsewhere.^ One feature the Labourers' Union 
 shared in common with the trade unions, and with disastrous 
 results. It endeavoured to combine with its other objects the work 
 of Friendly Societies. But the attempt proved to be beyond its 
 powers, and became one of the chief causes of its ultimate collapse. 
 The immediate success of the Labourers' Union was considerable. 
 Wages certainly rose, though no statistical evidence can be reUed 
 on to show the extent of the rise. It must be remembered that the 
 better class of workmen had left the poorly-paid districts of the 
 South and East, and that employers were asked to pay more money 
 for labour which was inferior in quaUty and less in result, without 
 the advantage of the better prices for their produce which were 
 obtainable in the industrial centres of the North and Midlands. 
 
 ' See the evidence of Joseph Arch before the Agricultural Commission in 
 1881, Qu. 68, 422. (Parliamentary Papers, 1882, vol. adv., p. 61.) 
 
UNIONS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS 411 
 
 Combination was, therefore, met by combination. Strikes proved 
 an ineffective weapon. Employers were able to supply the places 
 of the strikers, either from the general labourers who stood outside 
 the National Union of Agricultural Labourers, or from the un- 
 employed and casually employed population of the towns. In 
 July, 1874, after a prolonged struggle of six months, the Union 
 suffered a severe defeat. Numbers, as well as funds, began to 
 dwindle. Inside the Union there was a split. Between it and the 
 more recent Federal Union (1873) arose more or less open hostility. 
 The disastrous period of 1875-1884 began to tell on the position of 
 labourers, in regard both to amount of wages and to regularity of 
 employment. They could no longer maintain their weekly pay- 
 ments, and their leaders advised against resistance to reductions. 
 Much of the advance in wages which had been gained was lost ; 
 but it was through the Union that the parliamentary franchise 
 was won. 
 
 Cynics may say that it was the parliamentary vote which gave 
 the labourer his first real step upwards. It made him the most 
 important of the three classes which constitute the agricultural 
 interest, and, from that moment politicians have tumbled over one 
 another in their eagerness to secure his support. Be this as it may, 
 there can be no doubt of his substantial progress since 1884. Most 
 men of the class are still poorly paid ; many are precariously 
 employed and poorly housed ; among all, poverty is chronic, and, 
 though destitution is certainly rare, the dread of it is seldom 
 absent. But, speaking generally, labourers in 1912 are better 
 paid, more regularly employed, better housed, better fed, better 
 clothed. They are better educated and more sober. Their hours 
 of labour are shorter. They are secure of a pension for themselves 
 and their wives in their old age. They can, if they choose, make 
 their influence felt in the government of their parish, the administra- 
 tion of their county, the direction of the affairs of the nation and of 
 the empire. Their wives and children are no longer driven by 
 necessity to labour in the fields. What more can labourers want ? 
 may be impatiently asked by some. Others, conscious that all 
 is not yet well, may ask with anxiety — ^what more can be done ? 
 
 It would be difi&cult to answer either question. Labourers, as 
 individuals, may know what they want. It is generally some 
 particular piece of land. But, as a class, they have not formulated 
 their general aspirations in definite form : they are conscious of 
 
412 CONCLUSION 
 
 little more thaji discontent with a life which for them has lost its 
 meaning and with that loss its savour. Yet perhaps a contrast 
 between the past and the present conditions of rural villages may 
 suggest some sort of answer. Under the old system, some of the 
 existing evils prevailed, as well as others which are now removed. 
 The village was not Arcadia. Its life was by no means idyllic. In 
 one sense, at all events, it was on a lower level then than now. The 
 peasant was too absorbed in his own surroundings to care for matters 
 outside his own environment. He could rarely read ; he seldom 
 thought of anything beyond his daily pursuits ; he had no ideas 
 and few opinions except on the practical subjects in which he was 
 interested. For many years, under the shock of change, the mind 
 of the agricultural labourer was even less active and even more 
 narrow. His daily work was less varied and more monotonous ; 
 he had lost the opportunity of practising the manifold crafts in 
 which his grandfather had been occupied ; he toiled exclusively 
 for a master, not for himself. He fell into a half-dazed state of 
 fatalism. Now this is changing. Labourers read, think, enquire. 
 Their minds are awakening and curious for information. They are 
 slowly beginning to extend their intellectual horizon beyond their 
 own individual misfortunes or advantages, and to understand the 
 meaning of economic laws. In this mental development, politics, 
 honourably handled, and dealing with principles not personalities, 
 might, and should, play an important part. A great responsibility 
 rests on writers in the public press and on platform orators. 
 
 The mental change in progress may account for the restlessness. 
 It does not by itself explain the discontent. The peasant, under 
 the old system, had a defimte independent place in the community. 
 He commanded respect for his skill, judgment, and experience in 
 his own industries. He was not cut o£E by any distinctions in ideas, 
 tastes, or habits from the classes above. On the contrary, each 
 grade shaded almost imperceptibly into the next. To-day, the 
 intermediate classes have disappeared. Instead of the ascending 
 scale of peasant-labourer, the blacksmith, carpenter, wheelwright, 
 and carrier, the small-holder, the village shopkeeper, the small 
 farmer, the larger farmer, the yeoman occupying his own land, and 
 the squire, there are in many villages only two categories, — employers 
 and employed. The gulf is wide enough. It has been broadened 
 by the progress of a civilisation which is more and more based on 
 the possession of money. All the employing classes have moved on 
 
ENTIRE DEPEKDENCE ON MONEY WAGES 413 
 
 and upwards in wealth, in education, in tastes, in habits, in their 
 standard of living. Except in education, the employed alone have 
 stood comparatively still. The sense of social inferiority which is 
 thus fostered has impressed the labourer with the feeling that he 
 is not regarded as a member of the community, but only as its helot. 
 It is from this point of view that he resents, in a half-humorous, 
 ha]f-sullen fashion, the kindly efEorts of well-meaning patrons to 
 do him good, the restrictions imposed on his occupation of his 
 cottage, as well as the paraphernalia of policemen, sanitary and 
 medical inspectors, school-attendance officers, who dragoon and 
 shepherd him into being sober, law-abiding, clean, healthy, and 
 considerate of the future of his children. To his mind, it is all 
 part of the treatment meted out to a being who is regarded as 
 belonging to an inferior race. 
 
 The economic side of the change further accentuates the dis- 
 content and adds a practical to the sentimental grievance. The 
 peasant worked as hard as, or harder than, his descendant. But 
 his industry was more interesting to him, partly because it was more 
 manifold, partly because much of it was for himself. He had less 
 need of money. Living more on his own produce, he could satisfy 
 some of his wants by exchanges in kind. When he had to buy, 
 he obtained money either by sale of his own stufE or by working for 
 an employer. But to earn weekly wages, or to be in regular employ- 
 ment, was not for biT" an absolute necessity. He was little 
 affected by the laws of demand and supply in relation to labour. 
 The new commercial system, on the other hand, has made the 
 agricultural laboiu%r entirely dependent on employment and 
 money wages. Instead of producing much of his own food, he 
 has to buy it nearly all. In order to live, he must sell his labour 
 for cash, and under the stress of new exigencies which limit his 
 power of bargaining. Now, if the labourer loses employment, 
 or fails to find it, he has no resource on which to fall back. His 
 livelihood, and, in case of tied cottages, his home, depend on a 
 week's notice. A change in the ownership or occupation of the land 
 on which he works may cut bim adrift. Against this uncertainty 
 he cannot protect himself. But he may lose his wages in another way, 
 and against this he can be partially secured out of his savings. 
 For this reason, even his thrift is guided into new channels by the 
 commercial spirit which necessarily controls his Ufe. The peasant's 
 savings went into the purchase of a pig or a calf, or into some other 
 
414 CONCLUSION 
 
 form of reproductive investment. They meant a step upwards in 
 well-being. But the labourer of to-day saves for a different object. 
 His weekly earnings, on which depend his livelihood and home, are 
 all-important. It is against sickness, therefore, that he tries to 
 secure himself by painful thrift. What he pays for insurance is 
 not an investment ; the money that he puts into a Friendly Society 
 is not capital which he can ever use. Once paid, it is gone for ever. 
 His savings do not in fact help ^™ to put his foot on the ladder of 
 prosperity. They only serve to protect his family and himself 
 against a possible adversity. The great number of labourers who 
 insure in Friendly Societies is a pathetic proof of their total depend- 
 ence on weekly earnings and of their haunting dread of the loss of 
 wages through sickness. But the popularity of Slate Clubs shows 
 their consciousness of the disadvantages of the ordinary insurance. 
 By dividing out at the end of each year, they are at least able to 
 secure the use of a portion of their annual savings as capital. 
 
 Under the older system, peasants were rarely without some real 
 stake in the agricultiu:al community ; they were not members of 
 an isolated class ; they were not exclusively dependent on competi- 
 tive wages for their homes and Uvelihood ; they were seldom without 
 opportunities of bettering their positions ; they had not before them 
 the unending vista of a gradual process of physical exhaustion in 
 another's service. Under the modem commercial system, the 
 conditions from which peasants were generally free are those under 
 which the average agricultural labourer hves, though exceptional 
 men may struggle out of their tyranny. They have no property 
 but their labour. Even of that one possession, such are the exigencies 
 of their position, they are not the masters. If they fail to sell it 
 where they are now Uving, or if they lose employment by a change in 
 the ownership or occupation of the land on which they work, they 
 must move on. Their home is only secure to them from week to 
 week. For all wage-earning classes, the modem conditions of 
 industry are approximately the same. But in villages they are 
 reUeved by few of the compensations which to the eyes of country 
 visitors appear to be offered in towns. In money wages, artisans 
 are better paid ; they have greater chances of rising to higher rates 
 of remuneration ; they have larger facilities for recreation and 
 amusement ; so far as their homes are concerned, they are less 
 directly under the thumb of their employer ; they belong to a less 
 isolated and more numerous class ; they live in the midst of a 
 
ACCESS TO THE LAND AS OWNERS 416 
 
 population which is still minutely graduated in the scale of social 
 position ; they have no excuse for imagining that laws of police, 
 sanitation, health, and school attendance are designed and ad- 
 ministered for the vexatious control of their social and domestic 
 habits. Agricultural labourers believe that there is life in the towns ; 
 they know that in the villages there is none, in which they share as 
 a right, or which for them has any meaning. They may be indispens- 
 able, but it is only as wheels in another man's money-making 
 machine. 
 
 If the attractions of towns are to be counteracted, and agricul- 
 tural labourers lifted from apathy and hopelessness into contentment 
 and activity of interest, a reality, a purpose, a meaning must be 
 given to village life. Probably this can only be done effectivdy 
 by giving labourers readier access to the land, and access as ovmers. 
 Tenancies may to a certain extent produce similar results. They 
 may stimulate pride in work, provide variety of interest, offer scope 
 for ambition. But the incentive of ownership is incomparably 
 stronger. It is true that the Board of Agriculture notices that few 
 appUcants for land express a desire to become owners. They 
 certainly do not, so long as they must, imder the existing law, pay 
 a deposit of 20 per cent, of the purchase price, which either absorbs 
 their working capital or compels them to begin on borrowed money. 
 But experience in the other direction is not entirely wanting. The 
 Duke of Bedford's advertisement of seventeen small ownerships at 
 Maulden, where no deposit was required, produced upwards of 500 
 applicants. The Small Holdings Act has provided a certain quantity 
 of land. But its methods are so faulty, the rents which it requires 
 are so high, the interest and instalments charged on such necessary 
 improvements as roads are so excessive, that its operations are 
 necessarily limited. Moreover, if once the demand under the Act 
 was approximately satisfied, the pressure on County Council candi- 
 dates for reductions of rent would be so severe as, in all probability, 
 to result in considerable loss to the ratepayers. Finally, it may be 
 observed that applicants under the Act have been, to a very large 
 extent, men who are superior in financial position to those for whose 
 benefit the measure was originally designed. Agricultural labourers, 
 pure and simple, are generally afraid of the venture, unless they can 
 form a co-operative society, from which the stronger men, financially 
 and morally, hold themselves aloof. 
 
 It is only by ownership that the atmosphere can be re-created in 
 
416 CONCLUSION 
 
 which the peasant became part of the land and the land part of 
 him. Domestic handicrafts cannot be revived ; the old gradation 
 of ranks cannot be exactly replaced ; the leisureliness and tran- 
 quillity have passed away for ever in this more crowded and bustling 
 age. To a greater extent than before, laws of competitive supply 
 and demand must dominate labour and regulate rates of wages. 
 But ladders of thrift and industry may, with the co-operation of the 
 State, be planted in every village by which agricultural labourers 
 might still climb upwards, gain a permanent stake in. the rural 
 community, and escape that exclusive dependence on employment 
 and cash earnings which renders their Uvehhood and homes at 
 present insecure. But the bottom rung of the ladder must be placed 
 low enough. The opportunity of buying a freehold cottage and 
 garden appeals to every man, if the annual instalments do not exceed 
 the annual rent current in the neighbourhood. The well-intentioned 
 and useful restrictions imposed by landlords will probably be at once 
 ignored. Lodgers will be taken in, possibly to the detriment of the 
 cottage-owner ; pigs and poultry will be kept which may be a 
 nuisance to neighbors. Such matters must be left to right them- 
 selves. No one minds the smell of his own pigs or the noise of his 
 own poultry. Allotments, brought within easy reach and moderately 
 rented, should be universally provided, unless the undeveloped land 
 duty raises their rent to a prohibitive height, and drives field gardens 
 to a distance which renders them comparatively useless. No 
 scheme is universally applicable to every locaUty. Small arable 
 holdings or even farms may be suitable in some districts. In other 
 parts of the coimtry bits of grass land may be of greater value. 
 For the addition of the requisite pasture to arable holdings, a 
 common, carefully stinted, and regulated by the small owners them- 
 selves, as in the case of the Duke of Bedford's scheme at Maulden, 
 may prove a useful expedient. In every village such a common, it 
 properly managed, would be a boon by increasing the local supply of 
 milk, which is scarcer in villages than in towns. 
 ^On economic lines such as these, village life might in time be 
 reconstructed, and intellectually placed on a higher level than the 
 old. To each inhabitant would be offered the prospect of a career 
 full of modest possibilities and varied interests. In the home and 
 on the soil belonging to their parents, children might gain that love 
 of country pursuits which is raxely acquired in later years, and that 
 practical handiness in all details of the management of land without 
 
THE NEW CENTRE OP POWER 417 
 
 which they can never become efficient workers. Agricultural 
 labourers are too well aware of what land will or wiU not do to 
 demand an universal system of small holdings. Tenant-farmers 
 would, therefore, still hold their own, and, in the supply of more 
 effective labour, draw their own special advantages from the re- 
 construction of village lite. Nor need the means of mental expansion 
 be wanting. Co-operative societies for the wholesale purchase and 
 retail sale of commodities, credit banks managed by the members 
 themselves, approved societies in each village for the conduct of the 
 business of national insurance, parish councils freed from the 
 tutelage of larger public bodies, might give to the inhabitants new 
 and wider opportunities of business training, which would make 
 them more intelligent and therefore more useful citizens. 
 
 The centre of power has shifted. It is no longer landowners or 
 tenant-farmers, either alone or in combination, who hold the key 
 to the rural situation. It is the agricultural labourer. It seems 
 inevitable that, in the near future, sacrifices will be asked both from 
 owners and occupiers of land. To the existence of both, the main- 
 tenance of the principle of private property in land is vital. It is 
 on that issue that the battle seems likely to be fought. The question 
 for them to consider is, whether, by any reasonable sacrifice, they 
 can strengthen their position by establishing ownership on a more 
 democratic basis, or whether, without material concessions, they 
 can successfully defend the existing system on its merits. For 
 both views, something may be said ; for disimion, nothing. From 
 their own knowledge and experience, agriculturists may unite in 
 attempting to guide the movement in directions which may materially 
 afEect their own position, but will at the same time benefit their 
 industry as a whole, and save intact the principle of private property 
 in land. If they give no practical lead, the direction of the move- 
 ment seems likely to fall into the hands of reforming theorists, intent 
 on repeating the time-honoured mistake of applying to agricultural 
 problems remedies which are only appUcable, if at aU, to industrial 
 or urban difficulties. To aU classes dependent on agriculture the 
 consequences threaten to be disastrous, and, most of all, to agri- 
 cultural labourers. In the extreme form of the proposal of the 
 theorists, the whole taxation of the country would be ultimately 
 thrown upon rent. In order to lighten the fiscal burdens of townsmen, 
 agricultural labourers, whether in occupation of the land or not, 
 would thus be reduced to a position to which, before the establish- 
 
 2d 
 
418 CONCLUSION 
 
 ment of British rule, the only parallel was afforded by the Egyptian 
 feUaheen. In the modified form of the theory, the added burden on 
 land must necessarily mean increased rents, and either reduced 
 employment or lowered wages. Whichever form of the theory is 
 adopted by a political party, the first step is, according to the 
 argument of its advocates, to ascertain the bare unimproved value 
 of agricultural land. For the purpose of this enquiry, unfor- 
 tunately, the Valuation now in progress would be only a costly 
 farce, if it were not also a serious injustice. 
 
LATIN WRITERS ON AGRICULTURE 419 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AGRICULTURAL WRITERS DOWN 
 
 TO 1700. 
 
 BEFORE THE INVENTION OF PRINTING 
 
 Latin WnUrs on Agriculture. — Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius. M. 
 Catonis Prisci de Re Rugtica liber ; Marcii Terentii VairomB Rerum 
 Rusticarum, libri i.-iii. ; Lutii Junii Moderati Columelloe Rei Rueticot 
 laber Primus — Tertius — Decimus, ed. G. Merula. Palladii Rutilii 
 ^miliani de Re Rustica liber primus-liber ziii., ed. F. Colucia. Venice 
 (1470 ?). U72. 
 
 [Cato, commonly called the Censor, died B.C. 149. Varro flourished in the 
 last century before Christ. Columella, whose agricultural writings are 
 the most useful of the four Latin writers, flourished in the first century of 
 the Christian era. He also wrote a treatise, De Arboribiis, Palladius, who 
 seems to have written in the fourth century a.d., borrows largely from 
 Columella. The above-mentioned book is the first printed edition of any 
 part of the Roman writers on Agriculture, though many manuscripts probably 
 existed in the libraries of English monasteries. Frequent editions were subse- 
 quently published abroad, but none apparently in England. 
 
 Translations were also printed abroad, e.g. of Columella into Italian by 
 Pietro Lauro (1644), and into French by Charles Cotereau (1666). But none 
 seems to have been printed in England till 1726, when Richard Bradley, F.R.S., 
 Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge, published his Survey of 
 Ancient Husbandry and Oardening collected from Cato, Varro, Columella, etc. 
 A manuscript translation of Palladius into English verse belonging to the 
 fifteenth century (1420) was edited by Messrs. Lodge and Herrtage, under the 
 title of PaOadius on Hosbondrie for the Early English Text Society, 1873 
 and 1879.] 
 
 Thirteenth Century Manuacripta. — ^Walter of Henley's Husbandry. Together 
 with an anonymous Husbandry, Seneschaude, and Robert Grosseteste's 
 Rules. (Ed. Elizabeth Lamond. Royal Historical Society, 1890.) 
 
 [It is stated by Mr. Donald M'Donald (Agricultural Writers, 1200 to 
 1800 (1908), p. 11) that Walter of Henley's Husbandry was reproduced in 
 James Bellot's Booke of Thrifte, 1689. The book does not appear in the 
 British Museum Catalogue. But the Library contains another work by 
 James Bellot of Caen, entitled Le Jardin de Vertu, etc. (1681), containing 
 extracts in French and English from the " best and wisest books."] 
 
 Gabdinis (Matsteb Ion). 
 The Feate of Oardening. 
 
 [Edited from the original fifteenth century manuscript by the Hon. 
 Alicia Amherst (Mrs. Evelyn Cecil), AnAoeoiogia, vol. liv.] 
 
420 APPENDIX I. 
 
 PRINTED BOOKS, 
 Cbescemtius or Petbus db Cbescentus. (Bom 1233 : died 1320.) 
 
 Opua Suralium Commodontm give de Agrieidtura. Libri xii. Augsburg^ 
 1471. 
 
 [This work was translated into Italian, 1478 ; into French, 1486 ; into 
 German, 1493.] 
 
 L1TTI.BT0N (Sib Thomas). 
 
 LeteUun Tenuria new eorrecte. 1616. 
 
 [The ediUo princepe is a folio volume printed by Letton and Machlinia 
 without date or title. The work begins : " Tenant en fee simple est," etc. 
 Another edition, also without date or title, was published by Machlinia, 
 probably later {« it contains fewer abbreviations. 
 
 The first dated edition (1516) is in Norman French. The first edition in 
 English is published by Berthielet : LyttUton Tenures traely tranalated into 
 Englytahe, 1638.] 
 
 MoBE (Sm Tbouas). 
 
 LibeUita vere aureus, nee minus salutaria quam festivus de optima rei 
 pubUcae statu, deque nova Insula Utopia. 1616. 
 
 [ThiB first edition of Utopia was printed at Louvain. The book was 
 translated into English under the title of A fruiteful, and pleasant worke 
 of the heste state of a puhlyque weale, and of the newe yle called Utopia, by 
 " Ralph Robynson Citizein and Goldsmithe of London," 1661.] 
 
 FrrzEEBBEBT (John). 
 
 1. The Bohe of Huabondrye. 1623. 
 "Here begynneth a newe tracte or treatyae mooste pftable for all 
 
 husbade men." 
 
 [Book of Husbandry, ed. W. W. Skeat. English Dialect Society, 1882.] 
 
 2. Ttie Boke of Surueyeng and Improu/vemlete. 1523 
 " Here beg3mneth a ryght frutefuU mater : and hath to name the boke 
 
 of surueyeng and improuvemets." 
 
 Benese (Bichass), " chtumon of Herton Abbey besyde London." 
 
 This boke sheweth the maner of lande, as weU of woodUmde, as of lande in 
 the f Me, and comptynge the true nomhre of acres of the same, etc. 1637. 
 
 TUBNEB (WiDLIAM). 
 
 Libellus de Be Herbaria Nomts, in qu/o herbarum aliquot nomina greca, 
 latina, is Anglica habes, etc, 1638. 
 
 [The first English version was entitled The names of herbes in Qrehe, 
 Latin, Englishe, Duche and Frenche, wyth the commune names that Herbariea 
 and Apotecaries use. Gathered by William Turner. 1648. 
 
 The second edition of the work appeared as A new Herball, wherin are 
 eonteyned the names of Herbes in Oreke, Latin, etc. etc. 1661.] 
 
 8. (W.) or Hams (John). 
 
 The Oompendious or brief e Examination of certayne ordinary complaints 
 of divers of our countrymen m these our times. 1649. 
 
 [First printed in 1681 but edited (1893) from the MS. of 1649 by 
 Elizabeth Lamond.] 
 
 DiooES (Leonard). 
 
 A Book named Tectonicon, briefly shewing the exact measuring and ipedie 
 reckoning aU maner of Land, Square Timber, etc. 1656. 
 
 [This book continued to be republished at intervals till the close of the 
 seventeenth century: e.g. 1634, 1637, 1656, 1692.] 
 
AGRICULTURAL WRITERS, 1557-77 421 
 
 TuasEK (Thomas). 
 
 A hundreth good poirUes of husbcmdrie. 1067. 
 
 Subsequently amplified into 
 Fiue hundreth good Pointea of Hiubandry, untied to as many of good 
 Euawifery. 1673. 
 
 BLX7in>EVILLE (ThOHAS). 
 
 1. A newe booke containing the arte of ryding and breakynge greats horses, etc. 
 [Translated from the Italian of F. Grisone.] 1660. 
 
 2. The fower chiefyst offices belonging to Horsemanshippe. That is to saye, 
 the office of the Breeder, of <Ae Rider, of the Keper, and of the Ferrer, etc. 
 
 1666 and 1666. 
 
 [Parts i. and ii. are undated : Farts iii. and iv. are dated 1666 and 
 1666 respectively. Part ii. consists of a revised edition of the translation 
 of Orisone's Arte of Ryding.'] 
 tttt.t. (Thomas). 
 
 The proffitdble Arte of Oardeninge, etc. ... To this annexed two proper 
 treatises, the one entitled The merueUous gottemmenie . . . of the Bees 
 . . . And the other, th^ yearly cojectures meete for husbandmen to knaive. 
 Englished by Thomas Hyll. 1668. 
 
 [In the edition of 1672 appears the following addition : Wherunto is 
 newly added a treatise of the Arte of Oraffing and planting of Trees.] 
 
 EZBESBAOH (CONBAD). 
 
 Rei Ruaticae Hbri guatuor. Cologne, 1670. 
 
 Hascaui (Leonabd). 
 
 1. A Book of the Art and Mamner how to graff and plant all sortea of Trees 
 etc. 1672. 
 [The book is mainly a translation from the French, with certain Dutch 
 
 practices added, and is described as being " set forth and Englished " 
 by L(eonard) M(ascall). It was published in the latter half of the seven- 
 teenth centiuy under the title of The Country-Mans new Art of PlanUng 
 and Oraffing, etc. 1662.] 
 
 2. The Huabandlye Ordring and Oovemmente of PouUrie PracOaed by the 
 Leamedate, and such as have bene knoume skUfuUest in that Arte and in 
 our tyme, 1681, 
 
 3. The first Booke of CatteU : Wherein is shewed the gouemment of Oxen, 
 Kine, CaJxies, etc. : The Second booke entreating of Horses, etc. : the Third 
 booke entreating of the ordering of Sheepe and Qoates, Hoggea and Doggea, 
 etc. 1691. 
 [The edition of 1696 seems to have been the third edition of this work. 
 
 The book was often republished under the title of The Oovemment of 
 CatteU. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, it was edited and 
 " enlarged " by Richard Kuscam, Oent., and published (1680) under the 
 title of The Oountreyman'a Jewel.] 
 
 Scot (Rbtnoibb). 
 
 A PerfUe platforme of a Hoppe Oarden, and neceaaarie InatrucHona for the 
 making and maynterunmee thereof, etc. 1674. 
 
 Maisib (N10HOI.AS). 
 
 A pibmne and eaaie way to remedie a horae that is foundered in his feats, 
 
 etc. 1676. 
 
 OoooB (Basnabe). 
 
 Foure Bookes of Huriiandrie, eoUected by M. Oonradua Heresbaehius. . . . 
 
 Newely Englished and increased by B(amabe) O(ooge), Esquire. 1677 
 
 t, »'■' 
 
422 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Habbisom (Whxiau). 
 
 An hiatoricaU deaeriptwn o/ the Island o/ Britayne, etc. 1677. 
 
 Leigh (VAi.ENTiNii). 
 
 The Moste Profitable and commendable Science of Surveying of Landea, 
 etc. • 1677. 
 
 E. (B.) 
 
 A Digeourae of Houaebwndrie. . . . Declaryng how by the Hoiuebandrie, 
 or rather the Houaeunferie of Hennea, etc. 1680. 
 
 [Tbia is a translation of the Diacoura Oeconomique. . . . Monatrant 
 eomme de cinq cena liurea pour une foia empUn/^ee I'on peult tirer par 
 an quatre mil cinq cena liurea de -progUA honneate, etc., by Prudent Le 
 CSioyselat. 1672.] 
 
 Pasxridoe (JohIn). 
 
 The Treaawrie of Commodioua Conceitea and hidden Secreta. Commumty 
 called. The Oood Huawivea Cloaet of proviaion for the health of her household. 
 
 4th ed. 1684. 
 
 EsTniNNJ! (Chabijis) and Lxebatjlt (Jean). 
 
 L' Agriculture et Maiaon Ruatique. 1686. 
 
 [Estienne's Proediuim Ruaticum appeeured in 1664. From the French 
 veision, the book waa translated by Richard Suifleet under the title of 
 Maiaon Ruatique, or the Coumtrie Farme, 1600. It was abo published 
 by Gervase Markham in 1616.] 
 
 Beixot (Jaueb). 
 
 7^ Booke of Thrift, conteyning a perfUe order and right ntanner to profUe 
 la/nda and other thinga belonging to Huabandry. 1689. 
 
 [Bellot's work is added on the authority of D, M'Donald's AgrictdturaZ 
 Writera, 1200 to 1800.] 
 
 Mabkham (Oebvase). 
 
 1. Discourse on Horaemanahippe, etc. 1693. 
 
 2. How to Chuae, Ride, Traine, and Diet, both Hunting Horaea and running 
 Horses, etc. 1699. 
 
 3. CamiUirice : or. The English Horseman, contaynimg all the Arte ofHorse- 
 numship, as much as is necessary for any man to understand, whether he 
 be Horse-breeder, horae-ryder, horae-hunter, h(^ae-rvmner, horse-amiler, 
 horse-farrier, horse-Keeper, Coachman, Srmth, or Sadler, etc. 1607. 
 
 4. The Husbandman's Faithful Orchard, etc. The Whole Art of HuAamdry 
 contained in Foure Bookes, vie. i. Of the Farme or Mansion House, etc. 
 U, Of Gardens, Orchards and Woods, m, Of Breeding, Feeding, and 
 Curing of aU Tnatmer of Cattle- iv. Of PouUrie, Fowle, Fishe, and 
 Bees, etc. 1608. 
 
 6. Countrey Contentments ; or, the Husbandman's Recreations, in two 
 boohea, etc. 1611. 
 
 [In the 1616 edition, two new treatises were added ; " the second 
 
 intituled. The English Huswife" was subsequently (1638) issued as a 
 
 separate work, " edited " by Countess De la Warr.] 
 
 6. The English Husbandman, drawne into Two Boohea, and each Booke into 
 Two Parts, etc. 1613. 
 
 7. Cheajte and Oood Husbandry, etc. 1614. 
 8 Maiaon Ruatique ; or, the Omtntrtiy Farme, etc. 1616. 
 9. Mairkham's FareweB to Husbandry. 1620. 
 
AGRICDLTDRAL WRITERS, 1593-97 423 
 
 10. Markam'a Maieter-Peece. 1623. 
 
 11. The Inrichment of the Weald o/ Kent : or a Direction to the Husband-man 
 for the true ordering, manuring, and inriching of aU Qrounda within the 
 Wealds of Kent and Sussex, etc. 1625. 
 
 12. A Way to Get Wealth, etc. 1628. 
 
 13. The Art of ArOierie, etc. 1634 
 
 14. The Pleasures of Princes, or. Good Men's Recreations, etc. 1636. 
 [The number of books, new, or revised, or republished under difierent 
 
 titles, to which Markhom pat his name, makes it difficult to verify all of 
 them at the present day. TTia difEerent publishers in the seventeenth 
 century were equally puzzled as to their properties in JUB works, if , as is 
 stated, he was in 1617 compelled to sign the following memorandum : 
 " Mem. — ^That I, Gervase Markham, of London, gent., do hereby {n'omise 
 hereafter never to write any more book or bookes to be printed of the 
 diseases of any cattle, horse, ox, or cow, sheep, swine or goats. In witness 
 whereof I have hereunto set my hand the 24th dale of July, 1617, Gervase 
 Markham."] ' 
 
 Southebite: (Edkukd). 
 
 A Treatise concerning the right use and ordering of Bees, etc. 1S93. 
 
 Plat or Plati (Sib Huor). 
 
 1. The Jewel House of Art and Nature : Oonteining diners rare and profU- 
 able inventions, together ivith sundry new experiments in the Art of Hus- 
 bandry, etc. 1594. 
 
 2. Sxmdrie New and ArtificuU Remedies against Famine. . . . Written 
 by H. P. Esq., uppon the occasion of this present Dearth. 1596. 
 
 3. The New and admirable Arte of setting of Come, etc. 1600. 
 
 4. Delightes for Ladies, to adome their Persona, Tables, Clfisets and dis- 
 tiOatories, etc. 1602. 
 
 6. Fhraes Paradise, beautified . . . with sundry sorts of delicate fruites 
 and flowers, etc. 1608. 
 
 [Under its subsequent title of The Garden of Eden, etc., this book was 
 
 one of the most popular works on horticulture among seventeenth century 
 
 gardeners.] 
 
 NosDEN (John). 
 
 1. Speculum BrUannioe. The first parte. An historicaU . . disoription 
 ofMiddlesex. 1693. 
 
 2. SpeenM BrUannioe Pars. Essex described (1694). [Published by the 
 Camden Society in 1840 from the manusoript.] 
 
 3. SpeouH Britannioe Pars. The description of HartfordsMre. 1698. 
 
 4. The Surveiors Dialogue, very profUabHefor aU men to peruse, hut especially 
 for Gentlemen, Formers, and Husbandmen, tluU either shaUhaue occasion or 
 he loiBing to buy, hire, or seiU Lands, etc. Divided into five books. 1607. 
 [A sixth book was added, 1618, " of a familiar conference, betweene 
 
 a Purchaser, and a Surveyor of Loads, etc."] 
 
 6. SpeeuK Britannioe Pars AUera : or, a delineation of Northampton- 
 shire. 1610. 
 
 Okbaxde (John). 
 
 The Herbatt, or, GerteraU Historic of Plantes. 1697. 
 
424 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Maitwood (John). 
 
 A Treatise and Diaeowae of the Lawea of the Forrest. 1608. 
 
 [An eaf lier edition, A brief e ctHieeHon of the Lamea of iht Forest, was 
 printed for private circulation in 1692.] 
 
 DlTBBAVIUS (JAMTTB), BISHOP OB OUIUTZ. 
 
 A New Booke of Qood Husbandry. . . . OotOeimmg the order and maner 
 of making of Fish-pondes, etc. Translated into English at the speciall 
 request of Gleorge Churchey. 1599. 
 
 Unkno'wn. 
 
 God Spede the Plough. 1601. 
 
 Maxey (Edwabd). 
 
 A ttew Instuction (sic) of plowing and setting of come, handled in manner 
 
 of a Dialogue betweene a Ploughman and a SchoUer. 1601. 
 
 [The author would be happy with "A Uttle land well tild, a little 
 
 house well fild, a, little wife well wild."] 
 
 Tbiooe (Francis). 
 
 The Humble Petition of Turn Sisters : the Church and the ConrnumweaHih. 
 
 1604. 
 
 BnTLEB (CHAItI.ES). 
 
 Feminime Monarchic ; or, a treatise concerning Bees. 1609. 
 
 [The edition of 1634 is written in English spelt as it is spoken. It may 
 have been the difficulties of phonetic spelling which prompted its transla- 
 tion into Latin under the title of Monorchia Foeminina, sive Apum 
 Historia, 1673.] 
 
 Vattohan (Bowi.ani>). 
 
 Moat approved and long experienced Water Workes. Containing the manner 
 of Winter and Summer drowning of Medow <fc pasture. 16 10. 
 
 FoiiKINOHAlI (WnxiAii). 
 
 FeuMgraphia. The Synopaia, or. Epitome of Surveying Modernised. 1610. 
 Standish (Abthdii). 
 
 1. The Commons' Com/plamt. Wh&rein is conta/ined two speciall Qrievancea. 
 The first is the generaU destruction and waste of Woods in this Kingdome. 
 . . . The second Orievance is the exlreame dearth of Victuals, etc. 1611. 
 
 2. New Directiona of Experience to the Commona Convplamt, etc, 1613, 
 Chubton (R.). 
 
 An dlde Thrift Newly Revived, wherein is Declared the Manner of Planting, 
 Preserving, and Husbanding Yong Trees. . . . Discoursed in a Dialogue 
 betweejie a Surveyour, Woodward, Oendeman, and a Farmer, etc. 1612. 
 
 [This work is inserted on the authority of Donald M'Donald's ^^- 
 culturcd Writers. It does not appear to be in the Catalogue of the 
 British Museum.] 
 
 Rathbobne (Aabon). 
 
 The Surveyor, in four bookea. 1616. 
 
 Rbtoe (Robert). 
 
 Breviary of Suffolk. 1618. 
 
 [Edited from the manuscript by Lord F. Eervey, 1902.] 
 Lawson (Whxiam). 
 
 A rtew Orchard and Garden. 1618. 
 
AGRICULTURAL WRITERS, 1629-42 425 
 
 C. (H.) 
 
 A Discourse eonceming the Drayning of Fennes. 1629. 
 
 Lbvbtt (Johk). 
 
 Orderinge of Bees. 1634. 
 
 Calkhobpe (Chabi.es). 
 
 The Relation between a Lord of a Mannor and a Copyholder, his Tenant. 
 
 1636. 
 [In the 1666 edition of Sir Edward Coke's Compleate Copyholder this 
 work is " newly added."] 
 
 POWEIJ. (BOBEBT). 
 
 Depopulation Arraigned. 1636. 
 Gbtues (Tboicas). 
 
 The Honest and Plaine dealing Farrier, or a present remedy for curing 
 
 diseases and hurts in horses. 1636. 
 
 Cbawshet (John). 
 
 The Countryman's Instructor. 1636. 
 
 Reknant (Richabd). 
 
 A Discourse on Bees, whereunto is added the causes and ewe of blasted wheat, 
 hops, rye, and fruit. Together with the causes of smutty wheat. 1637. 
 
 De Gbat or De Gbet (Thomas). 
 
 The Compleat Horseman and expert Ferrier. 1639. 
 
 [The first edition contains an equestrianportrait of Charles I. on his horse 
 
 Edgar. This was omitted in the editions imder the Commonwealth.] 
 Plaites (Gabbisl). 
 
 1. A Discovery of infinite Treasure, hidden since the World's beginning, 
 etc. 1639. 
 [The book, with subsequent additions, was republished under the title 
 
 of Practical Husbandry Improv'd : or, A Discovery, etc.} 
 
 2. Reoreatio AgrictUturae. 1640. 
 
 3. The Profitable Intelligencer, etc. 1644. 
 
 4. Observations and Improvements in Husbandry. 1663. 
 6. T?te Countreyman's Reereation. 1664. 
 
 [2, 4 and 6 are added on the authority of Donald M'Donald, op. cU.} 
 
 Coke (Sib Edwabd). . "" 
 
 The compleate Copyholder, etc. 1641. 
 
 Best (Hembt). 
 
 Farming and Account Books. 1641. 
 
 [These records were printed by the Surtees Society (voL xzxiii., 1867), 
 
 under the title of Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641, being the Farming 
 
 and Account Books of Henry Best.] 
 
 L. (J.) 
 
 A Dtscourse concerning the great benefit of drayning and embanking. 1641 
 
 Vebuutsen (Sib Cobiieuus). 
 
 Discourse touching the Draining of the Great Fennes, etc. 1642. 
 
 BXTBBEIX (AnSBEWES). 
 
 Sriefe BeUOion Discovering Plainely the True Causes why the Great LeveU 
 ofFenes - . . have been drowned. 1642. 
 
426 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Wbston (Snt BioHABs). 
 
 A Discoura of Huabandrie used in Brabant and Flanders. 1646. 
 
 [This treatise, left in manuscript by Weston to his sons as a Legacy, 
 was piratically printed by Samuel Hartlib in 1660. The date of publica- 
 tion is given as 1605 ; but from HartUb's unctuous dedication of the 
 work to " The Bight Honorable the Council of State," that date is 
 obviously wrong. The title-page runs as follows : A DUcowa of Huaband- 
 rie used in Brabant and Flandera ; ahewmg the wonderful imprmemenit of 
 Land there ; and serving as a 'pattern for our practice in Ifiiie COMMON- 
 WEALTH. London, Printed by WilUam Du-Gard, Anno Dom. 1606. 
 Hartlib republished the Discourse in the following year as His Legaoie,} 
 
 HaBOUB (SAlItTBI,). 
 
 1. Samuel Hartlib Hie Legaoie ; or An Enlargement of the Discourse of 
 Husbandry used in Brabant and Flaundera ; Wherein are bequeathed to the 
 Common-wealth of England more OuUandiah and Domestick Experiments 
 and Secrets in reference to XJniueraatt Husbandry. 1661. 
 [This is a reprint and not an enlargement of Weston's work. It contains 
 
 nothing by Hartlib, except some Prefaces, which are not conspicuous for 
 honesty or sincerity. It consists of extracts from a number of letters 
 addressed to Hartlib, and in particular of a " Large Letter " by Robert 
 Child, who signs his full name for the first time in the edition of 1666.] 
 
 2. The Reformed Hiuband-man ; or a brief Treatise of the Errors, Defects, 
 and Inconveniences of our English Husbandry, etc. 1661. 
 [This is not by Hartlib himself. It was " Imparted some years ago " 
 
 to him, " And now by him re-imparted to all ingenuous English-men," 
 etc. It is often bound up with the Legacy. 1 
 
 3. An Eaaay for Advancement of Husbandry-Learning : or Propositions 
 for the errecting CoUedge of Husbandry, etc. 1661. 
 [This treatise is probably not by Hartlib but possibly by Cressy 
 
 Dymock, or by Qabriel Plattes, who in his Discovery had suggested a 
 " Colledge for Inventions in Husbandry."] 
 
 4. A Discoverie for Division or Setting out of Land, as to the beat Form. 
 Published by Samuel Hartlib Esquire, for Direction ... of the Ad- 
 venturers and Planters in the Fens, etc. 
 
 BlITH (WAI.TEB). 
 
 The English Invprover ; or, a New Survey of Husbandry. 1649. 
 
 Bepublished in an enlarged form as 
 
 The EngUah Improver Improved, or the Survey of Husbandry Surveyed. 1662. 
 
 WnrsTAKLBT (Jebbabd). 
 
 A Letter to the Lord Fairfax. . . . Proving it a/n undeniable Equity That 
 ttie common People ought to dig, plow, plant, and dweH upon the Commons, 
 without hiring them or paying Rent to any. 1649. 
 
 TTat.itbati (HeNBT). 
 
 Inclflsure Thrown Open, etc. 1660. 
 
 liETBOimN (WHiIxam). 
 
 Plfintmetria : or the Whole Art of Surveying of Land. By Oliver Wallinby. 
 
 1660. 
 [Bepublished with the author's name in 1663 as The Oom/j^att Surveyor."] 
 
 TaYIXJB (SYIiVAOTTB). 
 
 Common Qood : or the ImprovemenU of Commons, Foitttta, arid Phases, 
 by Inclosure, etc. 1652. 
 
AGRICULTURAL WRITERS, 1663-61 427 
 
 G. (E.) 
 
 Waste Land Improvement ; or, Gertain Proposals, etc. 1663. 
 
 [" Robberiee, thefts, burglaries, rapes, and murdeis receive their 
 nouriahmeiit and encouragement " from the wastes lying unenclosed.] 
 
 MooBE (Adam). 
 
 Bread for ^ve Poor. . . . Promised by Enclosure of the Wastes and Common 
 Orounds of England. 1663. 
 
 MooBE (John). 
 
 The Crying Sin of England of not earing for the Poor, wherein Incloswre is 
 . . . arraigned, convicted, and condemned by the Word of Ood, etc. 1663. 
 [This tract is answered by " Pseudomisius " in Coruiderations concerning 
 comTuonfields and inclosures . . . partly to answer some passages in 
 another discourse ... by Mr. J. M., under this title The Crying Sinne of 
 England, etc. 1664.] 
 
 Austin (Baij h). 
 
 A Treatise of Fruit Trees. 1663. 
 
 Matsew (Fsancis). 
 
 1. Of the opening of Rivers for Naoigation the Benefit exemplified by the Tvoo 
 Avons of BaUsbtiry and Bristol, etc. 1663. 
 
 2. A Mediterranean Passage by Water Between the two Sea Towns Lyrm 
 di TarmotUh, etc. 1656. 
 
 3. A Mediterranean Passage by Water from London to Bristol, etc. 1670. 
 
 Lee (Joseph). 
 
 E£ra|(a roii 'Aypov: or a Vindication of a Regtdated Enclosure. 1666. 
 
 [To this work and to " Pseudomisius," John Moore replied in A Scripture 
 Word against Indosure, viz. such as doe un-peojAe townes and un-come 
 fields, etc. (1666). To this, "Pseudomisius" replies in A Vindication of 
 the Cortsiderations concerning Commonfidds and Inclosures ; or, a Rejoynder 
 unto that Reply which Mr. Moore hath pretended to make unto those Con- 
 siderations (1666).] 
 
 B[kai.e] (J.). 
 
 Herefordshire orchards, a pattern far aU. Engiand. Written in an 
 epistolary address to S. Hartlib, Esq. 1667. 
 
 Sha. (J.). 
 
 Certaine Plaine and Easie Demonstrations of divers easie wayes and 
 meanesfor the improving of any manner of barren land, etc. 1667. 
 
 CAyEimisB (WiuxAM), Masquis axtd Duze or Kewcasti^. 
 
 1. Methode et Invention NouveUe de dresser Us Chevaux, etc. 1668. 
 
 2. A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, etc. 1667. 
 Speed (ADOi,FHirs). 
 
 Adam out of Eden ; or. An abstract of divers exceiSent Experiments touching 
 the advancement of Husbandry. 1659. 
 
 Dttckett (Thomas). 
 
 Proceedings concerning the improvement of aU manner of land. 1669. 
 
 Stbvbnson (Matthew). 
 
 The Twelve Moneths ; or, a discourse of every action proper to each particular 
 Moneth. 1661. 
 
428 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Mxuss (Absaham). 
 
 The Oountrymcm'a Friend and no . . . Mountebank, etc. 1662. 
 
 Atwklii (Oeoboi:). 
 
 The FaMfua Surveyor, etc. 1662. 
 
 JixjoDAUs (Sir Whjuau). 
 
 The HtBlory of Imbanking and Draining. 1662. 
 
 FoBxaET (Sauttex). 
 
 England's Interest considered in the Increase of Trade. 1663. 
 
 [The author argues in favour of enclosures, mainly on the ground that 
 
 they enable occupiers to apply the land to the use for which it is beat 
 
 suited.] 
 
 YaBBAMTON (AlIDBEW). 
 
 1. The Oreat Improvement of Lands by Clover, or the Wortderfvl AdvarUage 
 by right management of Clover. 1663. 
 
 2. England's Improvement by Sea and La/nd, etc. 1677. 
 Straitoehofes (Sahuei.). 
 
 A Book of Knowledge, in Three Parts. The first, containing a brief in- 
 troduction to astrology, , . . The second, a treatise of physick. . . . The 
 third, the countryman's guide to good hiubandry. 1663. 
 
 [In the 1696 edition a, fourth part is added under the title of " the 
 wheel of fortune."] 
 
 EvBiiTN (Josir). 
 
 1. Sylva ; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees. 1664. 
 
 2. Terra ; a Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Culture and 
 Improvement of it for Vegetation, etc. 1676. 
 
 3. Pomona : a Discourse concerning Cyder. 1679. 
 
 FoBSTSs (John). 
 
 Englamd's Happiness increased ; or a sure and easie remedie against oM 
 succeeding dear years; by a plantation of the roots catted Potatoes. 1664. 
 
 Bea (John). 
 
 Flora : seu de Florum OuH/l/ura. Or a complete FlflrUege, furnished with 
 aU requisites belonging to a florist. In III books. 1666. 
 
 [A second engraved title-page reads Flora, Ceres, and Pomona. Editions 
 were also published in 1676 and 1702.] 
 
 HUQHES (WiLIJAM). 
 
 The Compleat Vineyard, etc. 1666. 
 WoKUDOB (John). 
 
 1. Systema HorUcuUfuroe, etc. 1667. 
 
 2. Systema Agrioulturoe : The Mystery of Husbandry discovered. 1669. 
 
 3. Treatise of Husbandry, etc. 1676. 
 
 4. Vinetum Britarmicum ; or the Treatise on Cyder. 1676. 
 6. Apiarium : or a Discourse on Bees. 1676. 
 6. Tlie Most Easie Methodfor Making Cyder. 1687. 
 
 B[ai.obave] (J[oseph]). 
 
 TJie Epitome of Husbandry. Comprising oB necessary directions for the 
 improvement of it. 1669. 
 
 [Other editions were published in 1670, 1676, 1686. The book is based 
 on Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry.] 
 
AGRICULTURAL WRITERS, 1670-77 429 
 
 Reeve (Gabbhx). 
 
 Directions left by a OenUeman to his sonna ; for the Improvement of Barren 
 
 and Heathy Land, etc. 1670. 
 
 [This is to a great extent a repetition of Sir Richard Weston's Discotirs.'] 
 
 Rat (John). 
 
 Gatalogtis Plantarum AngUoe. 1670. 
 
 Meaoeb (Leonasd). 
 
 1. The English Gardener ; or, a sure guide to young planters, and gardeners, 
 in three parts, et<:. 1670. 
 
 [The tenth edition of this book was published in 1704.] 
 
 2. The Mystery of Husbandry : or, arable, pasture and woodland improved, 
 etc. 1697. 
 
 Shith (John). 
 
 1. EngUiruPs Improvement Revived ; in a Treatise of all manner of Hus- 
 bandry & Trade by Land and Sea, etc. Experienced in thirty years 
 Practice, and digested into six Books. 1670. 
 
 2. Profit and Pleasure United ; or, the Husbandman's Magazine, etc. 1704. 
 [It is uncertain whether the John Smith who wrote EngUmnd's Improve- 
 ment Revived, was also the J. Smith, Oent., who wrote Profit and Pleasure 
 United. The two works have been attributed to the same author ; but 
 probably they were by different writers.] 
 
 Haswasd (MicHAinj). 
 
 The Herds-man's Mate ; Or, a Guide for Herdsmen, etc. 1673. 
 
 Haxnes (Richard). 
 
 The Prevention of Poverty. 1674. 
 
 [A plea for the extended cultivation of flax and hemp. Haines wrote 
 several tracts for the improvement of the woollen and linen manu- 
 factures. He was answered by * Fhilo-Anglicus ' in Bread for the Poor, 
 etc., 1678.] 
 
 Cotton (Ceasi.es). 
 
 The Planters Manual : being Instructions for the . . . Ctdtivating ali sorts 
 of Fruit-Trees, whether stone-Fruits or Pepin-Fruits, etc. 1676. 
 
 [By the author of the Dialogue in the Compleat Angler.'] 
 
 Mace (Thouas). 
 
 Profit, Conveniency, and Pleasure, to the Whole Nation, Being a Short 
 Rational Discourse . . . concerning the Highways of England. 1675. 
 
 MOEUiENBBOCE (V. A.). 
 
 Cochlearia Curiosa ; or, the Curiosities of Scurvy Grass. Englished by 
 Thomas Shirley. 1676. 
 
 LiAMBEBT (James). 
 
 The CourUrynum's Treasure ; shewing the Nature, Cause, and Cure of all 
 Diseases incident to CaHel, etc. 1676. 
 
 CooH (Moses). 
 
 The manner of raising, ordering, and Improving Forrest-Trees. 1676. 
 
 Lawxbnoe (Antbont) and Beale (John). 
 
 Nurseries, Orchards, Profitable Gardens, and Vineyards encouraged in 
 several letters out of the country Directed to Henry Oldenburg Esq, 
 Secretary to the Royal Society. 1677. 
 
430 APPENDIX 1. 
 
 Plot (Robebt). 
 
 A Natural History of Oxfordshire. 1677. 
 
 BussEN (Moses). 
 
 A Further Discovery of Bees. Treating of the Nature, Oovemment, Oenera- 
 
 ticn and Preservation of the Bee, etc. 1677. 
 
 [Busden was Beemaster to Charles II., to whom the work is dedicated.] 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 A Treatise of Wool and Cattd. In a letter Written to a Friend occasion'd 
 upon a Discourse concerning the great Abatements of Bents, and the low Value 
 of Lands, etc. 1677. 
 
 Houghton (John), F.B.S. 
 
 A Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade. 
 
 1681-83 and 1691-1703. 
 [The materials collected by Houghton were rearranged and republished 
 in 4 vols, in 1727 by Bichard Bradley, T.B.S.] 
 
 MooBE (Sm Jonas), F.R.S. 
 
 1. History or Narrative of the Great Level of the Fens, etc. ■ 1685. 
 
 2. England's Interest : or the Oentleman and Farmer's Friend. 1703. 
 Blomb (Bicha£d). 
 
 The Oentlenum's Recreation. 1686. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 England's Improvement and Seasonable Advice, etc. 1691. 
 
 Beixebs (John). 
 
 Proposal for Raising a College of Industry of all useful Trades and Husbandry 
 
 etc. 1696. 
 
 Matheb (William). ; 
 
 Of repairing and mending of Highways. 1696. 
 
 Donaldson (James). 
 
 Husbandry Anatomized, or, am Enquiry into the present manner of Titting 
 and Manuring the Oround in Scotland for most Part, etc. 1697. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 The Husbandman, Farmer and Qrasier's Compleai Instructor. By A. S. 
 Cent. 1697. 
 
 [Sometimes attributed to Adolphus Speed on account of the initials 
 A. S. As Speed died nearly forty years before the publication, it might be, 
 on this argument only, equally easy to assign the authorship to Adam 
 Smith.] 
 
 NOUBSE (Timotht). 
 
 Campania FoeMx ; or, a Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of 
 Husbandry, etc. 1700. 
 
 Tbyon (Thouas), pseud. " Philotheos Fhysiologus." 
 
 The Country-man's Companion ; or, A new Method of ordering Horses dh 
 Sheep so as to preserve them both from Diseases and Casualties. 1700. 
 
MEDIAEVAL RATES 431 
 
 APPENDIX n. 
 THE POOR LAW FROM 1601 TO 1834. 
 
 The Poor Law suggests two distinct lines of enquiry — (1) the collection of 
 the funds for Poor Relief ; (2) the expenditure of the money when collected. 
 In other words, there ore two questions — ^how was the money raised ? and 
 how was it spent ? Only a slight outline of the complicated subject can 
 be here attempted. 
 
 1. Tee CoixEcnoN 07 the Fuitds pob Poob Reuef. 
 
 A variety of rates, statutory or otherwise, were collected in mediaeval 
 times. Fixed sums were required for various purposes, and their pay- 
 ment was locally apportioned to individuals in each district or parish according 
 to their ability to pay. Some of the rates were ctssessed on particular persons 
 in proportion to the benefits they individually received : some were raised 
 for piirposes of more general utility on all the inhabitants of the wider areas 
 which were benefited by the expenditure. Some originated in feudal tenures. 
 A port of the national taxes even was raised as a local rate. Thus the sub- 
 sicUes granted to the Crown under the name of " tenths and fifteenths " were 
 apportioned in fixed sums to the inhabitants of each district. A tenth of 
 the capital value of the movables in cities, boroughs, and ancient demesnes, 
 and a fifteenth of movables in the rest of the country, were thus raised. In 
 1334, a searching inquisition was made, in order to levy the tax with the 
 utmost accuracy and precision. The assessment of this year remained for 
 nearly two centuries the basis of future demands. Till the reign of Henry VII. , 
 when another elaborate assessment was made, the grant of tenths and 
 fifteenths meant a grant of the sums produced and apportioned in 1334. On 
 this basis was also levied money needed for many purposes of local govern- 
 ment, not covered by other rates. The required sums, represented by some 
 fraction of the valuation of 1334, were apportioned direct upon the con- 
 tributors, according to their estimated ability to pay. As guides to relative 
 means, records were kept in which were entered the size of the houses in 
 which contributors lived, or the acreage of the land that they fanned. In 
 effect these records resembled valuation lists. Their existence possibly 
 facilitated the eventual transfer of liability from inhabitants in respect of the 
 income which they enjoyed from all sources to persons in respect of the 
 annual value of the immovable property that they occupied. 
 
 The history of the origin of Poor Rates is, however, entirely different from 
 that of other rates, although, when once the contribution to the funds for 
 poor relief became a legal liability, they naturally were influenced by the 
 characteristics of the rates already in existence. 
 
 The indigent, in early times, were relieved by personal charity, which 
 religion enforced as a CShiistian duty. The contribution of money for the 
 poor was an exercise of the will, measured in amount by the means of the 
 
432 APPENDIX n.— POOR LAW 
 
 giver. It was a moral income-taz from which no peison escaped, according 
 to his ability and substance. Whether the payment was urged as a Christian 
 obligation, or enforced as a, duty which no one had the right to refuse, or 
 demanded by the civil power as a legal liability, it preserved this universal 
 character, universal botti as to persons and as to sources of income. 
 
 Gradually the optional charity passed into compulsory alms-giving, and 
 finally into locid taxation. Because this last stage was reached in the latter 
 years of the reign of Elizabeth, it is usual to say that the Poor Law dates 
 from 1601. In principle there was undoubtedly an important change. But 
 in practice it had come to matter little whether the universal obligation to 
 contribute, which attached to all persons according to their ability, was 
 enforced by religious, or by legal, penalties. For agriculturists, the really 
 serious change came later, when the universal income-tax raised from all 
 inhabitants became a rate levied upon occupiers in proportion to the annual 
 value of the immovable property which they occupy. It grew still more 
 important, when practically all other rates were levied according to the annual 
 value of property rateable to the Poor Bate. 
 
 The charitable relief of the poor was never a national, but always a local 
 biuden. Hence some law of settlement was necessary. When in 1388 
 (12 Bic. II. c. 7) " beggars impotent to serve " were confined to the places 
 where they happened to be at the passing of the Act, local provision waa 
 obviously needed for their support. For a time, the alms of the faithful 
 provided adequate fimds. When, however, not only " beggars impotent to 
 serve," but " valiant vagabonds," and " able-bodied vagrants " were saddled 
 on their birthplace or last permanent abode,^ their maintenance imposed a 
 heavy burden on parochial charity. Voluntary effort begins to flag and 
 compulsion to be applied. The machinery is still the alms-box ; the donors 
 are still all inhabitants according to their general ability. But if any parish 
 fails to provide sufficient funds to succour the impotent poor, or to keep 
 " sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars " to continual labour, the defaulting 
 parish was to forfeit 20s. a month.^ 
 
 Charity did not, however, provide the whole funds. In the legislation of 
 Bdward VI. a distinction begins to be drawn between the actual support 
 of the poor and the expenses incidental to their maintenance. Thus the 
 money administered in direct relief was still to be raised by charitable dona- 
 tions. But the costs of removing the poor to their birthplace or last permanent 
 abode, or the initial sums expended in providing " convenient houses " for 
 the impotent,* or the expenses of building Houses of Correction,* are to be 
 compulsorily raised by means of existing methods of taxation. 
 
 The growing btuden of poor relief, the inadequacy of the voluntary prin- 
 ciple, perhaps, also, the relaxation of any sense of the moral obligation of 
 charity, are shown in Elizabethan legislation. Alms-giving is abandoned 
 for compulsory provision. In the Act of 1672 (14 Eliz. c. 6) the voluntary 
 principle of charity survives only in name. The justices are to number the 
 poor, calculate the weekly sums required for their support " by their good 
 discretions," tax and assess " all and every inhabitant," register the names 
 of the taxpayers, and the amount of their taxation, appoint collectors, as weU 
 as overseers of the poor. If any person, thus taxed and assessed, " obstinately 
 refuses to give towards the help and relief of the poor," or " wilfully dis- 
 courages others from so charitable a deed," he is to be brought before two 
 justices, and committed to gaol until he is " contented " with their order. 
 Finally, in 1697 (39 Eliz. c. 3) the appeal to charity is practically thrown 
 
 ^B.g. 19 Hen. VII. o. 12 (1503-4) ; 22 Hen. VIII. o. 12 (1630-1). 
 2 27 Hen. VIU. c. 25 (1635-6). 
 
 n Ed. VI. c. 3 (1647), and 3 and 4 Ed. VI. ». 16 (1649). 
 nS Eliz. ti. 3 (1576-6). 
 
THE ACT OF 1601 433 
 
 aside altogether. The churchwardens, and four " substantial householdeia, 
 to be called overseers of the poor," are empowered to raise the necessary 
 funds by taxation of " every inhabitant and every occupier of lands " in the 
 parish, " according to the ability of the some parish." If anyone refuses to 
 contribute as he is assessed, distress is to be levied, and in default of distress 
 imprisonment is to be inflicted. The better known Act of 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2) 
 is a repetition of its predecessor, except that it gives a more precise definition 
 of the sources from which the money is to be raised. The overseers are to 
 raise the funds " by taxation of every inhabitant, peirson, vicar, and other, 
 and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, or propriations 
 of tithes, coal mines, and saleable underwood." 
 
 Under the Act of Elizabeth, not only every occupier, but every inhabitant 
 WEts required to contribute, and the measure of his liability was, not the 
 aimual rental value of the immovable property which he occupied, but his 
 ability to pay. In modem practice, inhabitants, as such, except parsons and 
 vicars, escape payment, and the accepted criterion of ability to pay is rental 
 value. It was nearly two centuries and a half before these two changes 
 were completed. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, the annual rent, which traders, manufacturers, 
 or farmers paid for their shops, factories, or farms, was probably the best 
 guide to lui estimate of their business profits. It was at least more satis- 
 factory than the estimate which their neighbours might form of those profits. 
 Very few years had, therefore, passed before rental value was generaUy 
 accepted as practical evidence of an occupier's ability to pay. The other 
 change was slower and more gradual. Inhabitants continued liable till a 
 much later date. The earnings of labour, whether fees, salaries, or wages, 
 went first. The rent of landlords escaped next.*^ Personal property and the 
 profits of stock-in-trade were not fuUy reheved till 1840 (3 and 4 Victoria, c. 89). 
 That Act provides that it shall not be lawful for the overseers of any parish, 
 " township, or village to tax any inhabitant thereof, as such inhabitant, in 
 respect of his ability derived from the profits of stock-in-trade or any other 
 property, for or towards the rehef of the poor." Since 1840, this measure 
 has been renewed from year to year, 
 
 2. The Ezpensitdse of the Fttkds baised fob Foob Beubf. 
 
 From mediaeval times two distinct classes of the poor had to be dealt with 
 — the impotent, and the able-bodied. Each class fell into two subdivisions ; 
 the impotent — ^into children, or the aged, sick, and infirm ; the able-bodied — 
 into stiudy rogues and vagabonds, or the honest poor, " willing to worcke " 
 but unable to find employment. Early legislators seem to have recognised 
 that poverty is a relative condition implying the want of comforts habitual 
 to any particular class, and that destitution is the absolute state of wanting 
 the necessaries of life. They accepted as a moral duty the direct relief of 
 the destitute ; they did not encourage public aid to the unconditional relief 
 of poverty. They also discriminated between voluntary and involuntary 
 indigence. They distinguished those who ore indigent owing to their own 
 conduct from those who are reduced to want by causes for which they them- 
 selves are not responsible. Thus the impotent poor were to be succoured 
 and reheved. The able-bodied were treated on difiEerent lines, and etush of 
 the two divisions into which the class falls was differently handled. Untold 
 misery might have been saved, if the original principles of poor relief had been 
 more strictly maintained ; their gradual relaxation, culminating in the years 
 1796-1834, sums up the history of the Poor Law from Elizabeth to Wilhom IV. 
 
 The relief of the impotent poor afEects agricultural laboiu only indirectly. 
 For this reason it will not be specially discussed here. It will be enough to 
 
 iSir Anthony Barby's case, 1633. 
 
 2e 
 
434 APPENDIX H.— POOR LAW 
 
 say that the Act of Elizabeth in 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2) followed previous legisla- 
 tion by directing money to be raised for the relief of the impotent poor — " of 
 lame, impotent, blind, and such other among them being poor and not able 
 to work," for the provision for them of " convenient houses of dwelling," and 
 for " the putting out of , . . children to be apprentices." 
 
 From the first, the problem of dealing with the able-bodied presented the 
 greatest diiHculty to legislators. The necessity of discriminating between 
 the two classes of the able-bodied was early felt. It was forced into pro- 
 minence, partly by the increase of mendicancy fostered by indiscriminate 
 almsgiving, partly by the industrial changes, which, during the Tudor period, 
 affected both agriculture and manufacture. Sturdy rogues and vagabonds 
 were punished, under penal laws of such ferocious severity that they defeated 
 themselves — ^with whipping, branding, imprisonment, and transportation. 
 For less hardened offenders labour was used both as a test and a penalty ; 
 for them Houses of Correction were created ; rewards were ofiered for their 
 apprehension ; they were harried by laws of settlement from parish to parish 
 until they reached their place of birth. Towards the able-bodied poor, who 
 were willing to work, a (Ufierent policy was adopted. It was at first scarcely 
 more lenient. For them a Uving at least, but not wages, was to be provided, 
 on condition that they earned their food a:S slaves. Labour was the test of 
 their necessities. In 1647 (1 Ed. VI. c. 3) every "city, town, parish, or 
 village " was required to provide work for its able-bodied poor, or " to appoint 
 them to such as will find them work " for meat and drink. EUzabethan 
 legislation proceeded on more humane lines. In 1675, and again in 1697 
 and 1601,^ " a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron," and other 
 stufi was to be provided in every parish " to set the poor on work." The 
 material was to be wrought up at the home of the needy able-bodied person, 
 finished at a given time, and paid for according to skill. Those who either 
 refused to work, or spoilt or embezzled the material, fell into the class of 
 vagabonds, and were consigned to a House of Correction. The stock was to 
 be replenished by the sale of the manufactured goods, so that the system 
 might become self-supporting. 
 
 The Elizabethan Poor Law was imperfectly administered. FoUtical 
 disorders increased the disorganisation of the system. Overseers failed to 
 collect the rates ; the stock was not uniformly provided ; the vagrant popula- 
 tion had greatly increased. Stanley,^ the ex-highwayman, writing probably 
 in 1606, imagined that there were then " not so few as 80,000 idle vagrants that 
 prey upon the conunon- wealth." It is improbable that their number hod de- 
 creased during the Civil Wars or under the Commonwealth. It was against 
 this class, and especially against squatters, that the Act of 1662 " for the 
 better Belief of the Poor " (14 Car. II. c. 12), commonly known as the " Act 
 of Settlement " was directed.' The principle on which it proceeded was 
 as old as the Anglo-Saxons. As the first step towards progress and 
 order, every man was reqiiired within 40 days to have a settled domicile, and 
 to be enrolled in some fixed community. Stranger and outlaw were synony- 
 mous terms. Throughout the Poor Law legislation from Bichard II. to 
 Elizabeth, the same principle had been enforced for the removal of the poor 
 to their birthpltuse or last permanent abode. If relief was to be treated as a 
 parochial, and not as a national, burden, a settlement was necessary. But 
 the Act of Charles n. indisputably made the law more rigid, and imposed 
 new fetters on the mobility of labour. It recites that people wandered from 
 parish to parish, endeavouring " to settle themselves where there is the 
 
 il8Eliz. c. 3; 39Eliz. o. 3; 43Eliz. c. 2. 
 
 ^Stcmleye's Semedy: or the Way how to Reform Wandring Beggan, Theeves, High- 
 way Robberi, and Pickpooket». London, 1646. 
 *B^)ort to the Poor Lam Board, by 6. Ooode, 1861. 
 
RELAXATION OF THE LAW 435 
 
 best stock, the largest commons or wastes to build cottages, and the most 
 woods for them to bum and destroy, ... to the great discouragement of 
 parishes to provide stocks, where it is liable to be devoured by strangers." 
 To these wanderers were applied the regulations for the removal of vagabonds. 
 Any person "likely to be chargeable to the parish," unless he had acquired 
 a settlement by a residence of 40 days, might be removed to his birthplace. 
 On this Act was built up a mass of settlement law, which occupied the 
 time of Sessions and Assizes, wasted the money of ratepayers, and, worst of 
 all, fettered labour to one spot. But the policy of the legislature seems to 
 have been to encourage and facilitate the relief of those who satisfied the 
 settlement test. The cost of the Poor Law increased so rapidly that, in order 
 to check what the Act of 1691 (3 and 4 Wm. and Mary, u. 11) styles the 
 frivolous pretences of the overseers, controlling powers were given to the 
 vestiy and the justices. The control of the magistrates only led to larger 
 expenditure. To reduce the growing cost a test of destitution was authorised. 
 By the Act of 1722 (9 Geo. I. c. 7) churchwardens and overseers were empowered 
 to provide houses for the maintenance of the poor, to contract for the employ- 
 ment of the inmates, and to apply the surplus of their earnings to the reduction 
 of the rates. If any applicant refused to enter the house, he was not 
 entitled to relief of any land from the irates. The ofEer of a living was made 
 entirely conditional on his entering the workhouse. 
 
 The Act of 1722 efiectively checked the spread of pauper relief wherever 
 it was adopted. But the legislation of George III. moved in the opposite 
 direction of increased laxity. No doubt the great rise in the price of pro- 
 visions from 1765 to 1774,' the disturbance of trade by the wars of 1756-63 
 and 1774-83, the invention of the steam-engine and the spinning-jenny, the 
 rapid growth of population, presented the old problems of unemployment 
 and poverty in an acuter form. As civilisation advanced, humanitarian 
 sentiment asserted new claims, and social legislation occupied a larger share 
 of the attention of Pcu'liament. The need for detailed information respecting 
 the cost of Poor Relief led to the Act of 1776, which required overseers to 
 furnish returns of their assessments and expenditure. From these returns 
 it appeared that the actual outlay in that year was £1,530,800. During the 
 early years of the reign, numerous amendments were passed in the administra- 
 tion of the Poor Law. But the most important changes were made by the 
 Act of 1782 " for the Better Belief and Employment of the Poor," usually 
 known as " Gilbert's Act " (22 George III. c. 83). In any parish, or union 
 of parishes, which adopted the provisions of the Act, the management of the 
 poor was vested in a visitor and guardians. Poor relief was thus taken 
 out of the hands of the overseers, whose duties were restricted to collecting 
 and accounting for the rates. For the impotent poor, houses were to be 
 provided which were in effect almshouses, though they unfortunately inherited 
 the traiditions of the old Houses of Correction and workhouses. The most 
 serious alterations affected the able-bodied. The workhouse test of destitu- 
 tion, or of voluntary pauperism, was partially discontinued. In any parish 
 where poor persons, able and willing to work but unable to find employment, 
 applied to the gtiardian, he was obliged, under a penalty, to find them work 
 conveniently near the residence of the applicants, to receive their earnings, 
 to apply the money to their maintenance, to make up any deficiency out 
 of the rates, to hand over any surplus to the earners. Alone among 
 wage-earners, the able-bodied poor had not to exert themselves to find 
 work or conduct their own bargains for wages. They were secure of a 
 living, not if they worked their best, but if they worked hard enough 
 and well enough to escape punishment. Nothing depended on their own 
 
 ' For 1766-64, the average price of wheat was 37s. 6d. a quarter ; for 1765-74, 51b. a 
 quarter. The price rose 35 per coot. 
 
436 APPENDIX II.— POOR LAW 
 
 characteis, skill, or mdustry, provided only that they kept out of the class 
 of sturdy rogues and vagabonds, or, as they were now called, " the idle 
 and disorderly." 
 
 Such measures as the encouragement of Friendly Societies, the foundation 
 of Savings Banks, the establishment of industrial schools were designed by 
 the Legislature to improve the condition of the labouring classes and to pro- 
 vide means of escape from poverty. Their remedial effects were necessarily 
 slow : they could afiord no relief to the hardships and privations into which 
 wage-earners were suddenly plunged by the exception^ rise in the price of 
 provisions in 1795-6. The labouring classes must have been brought to the 
 verge of famine, unless the advance in the cost of necessaries was met by a 
 corresponding rise in wages, or imless wages were supplemented by some 
 form of charitable allowances. In these circumstances, legislators and county 
 magistrates imfortunately turned for their immediate remedies to permanent 
 alterations in the Poor Law. In 1796 a tardy attempt was made to remedy 
 the worst abuse of the laws of settlement. The removal of any persons was 
 prohibited until they had actually become chargeable to the parish (36 Geo. III. 
 c. 101). In the same year the Berkshire magistrates, by what was from their 
 place of meeting known as the Speenhamland Act, endeavoured to fix a 
 " fair wage " by using the rates to supplement earnings in proportion to the 
 price of bread and the size of families (see Chapter XIV.). Other counties 
 adopted similar scales of supplementary allowances out of the rates. At 
 the time the expedient was of doubtful legality ; but in the following year 
 (1796) Parliament confirmed its principle. It sanctioned indiscriminate out- 
 door relief (36 Geo. TTI. c. 23) by completely abandoning the workhouse test 
 of destitution. That part of the Act of 1722 (9 Geo. I. c. 7) which had 
 permitted relief to be made conditional on entry into the workhouse was 
 repealed, on the ground that it prevented " an industrious poor person from 
 receiving such occasional relief as is best suited to his peculiar case," and 
 held out " conditions of relief injvirious to the comfort and domestic situation 
 and happiness of such poor persons." Overseers were authorised to give 
 occasional rehef in cases of temporary illness or distress at the houses of the 
 industrious poor unconditionally, although the recipients refused to enter 
 any house provided for their maintenance. 
 
 Justices were also empowered, at their discretion, to order money grants 
 to be given to the industrious poor in their own homes. The consequences 
 of these successive relaxations of the Poor Law were not at the time visible. 
 During the greater part of the war they were mainly used for the relief of 
 winter unemployment. Substantial advances in wages, the progress of 
 manufactures, the increased demand for laboiu created lay the larger axea 
 under tillage combined to relieve distress. It was during the period of 
 depression 1813-36 that the full effects were revealed. Both in manuEacturing 
 towns and agricultural districts employment had become scarce. Employers, 
 hard-pressed by falling prices, took advantage of the relaxed Poor Law to 
 reduce their expenses, by throwing on the ratepayers the greater part of 
 their labour bills. A single justice was further empowered, at his discretion, 
 to order relief to be given to poor persons in their own homes for one month ; 
 two justices might extend the order for two months, " and so on from time to 
 time, as the occasion shall require." ' 
 
 Within the next forty years the consequences of these relaxations of the 
 Poor Law were fully developed. They are summarised in the Keport of (he 
 Parliamentary Committee of 1817, and with greater detail by the Poor Law 
 Inquiry Commissioners, appointed in 1832, whose Report was published two 
 
 1 These powers were still further enlarged in 1816 (55 Geo. III. c. 137). A single 
 justice mi^t make an order for three months, and two justices for six months, ' ' and so on 
 from time to time as the occasion shall require." 
 
THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS, 1834 437 
 
 years later.* The general principle of this latter Report, on which was based the 
 Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 and 6 Wm. IV. c. 76), was that outdoor 
 relief of able-bodied paupers was the root-evil of the existing system, and that 
 their position must be made less eligible than that of independent labourers. 
 BeUef must, therefore, not be given in the home of the recipient. Destitu- 
 tion, or, as the Report expresses it, indigence, not poverty, is to be regarded 
 as the proper object of a Poor Law, and the workhouse affords the only reliable 
 test by which the two conditions can be discriminated. A man is only 
 destitute when he is ready to accept the restraint of a workhouse rather 
 than rely on his own resources. Parliament refused to adopt the extreme 
 course of absolutely and universally prohibiting outdoor relief to able-bodied 
 persons or to their families, as the Conunissioners recommended. It is signi- 
 ficant that no power was given to dissolve the Gilbert Unions, in which the 
 overseers were compelled by statute to employ able-bodied applicemts for 
 relief in work conveniently near their own homes. Xor was Parliament 
 altogether convinced that workhouses were essential to properly admim'stered 
 Poor Relief, and it showed its hesitation by not arming the Commissioners 
 with powers to compel their provision. In other respects the main principles 
 of the Report were adopted. 
 
 The Act of 1834 did not itself attempt to frame a new sjrstem of Poor 
 Relief. It rather aimed at correcting abuses by substituting for every variety 
 of practice the uniform adoption of improvements which experience had 
 proved to be salutary. Instead of elaborating its own code of rules, it con- 
 ferred on a newly constituted public body ample discretionary powers. It 
 altered the existing law of settlement and of bastardy. But the reaUy 
 important change which it effected was the creation of a Central Authority, 
 consisting of three Poor Law Commissioners, empowered to issue orders 
 regulating every detail of the local administration of Poor Relief. To this 
 Board were transferred the powers of all the unskilled and irresponsible 
 authorities of 16,000 parishes. Existing incorporations under Gilbert's Act 
 or local Acts were not to be dissolved. But with these exceptions, the Com- 
 missioners were specially empowered to group parishes into unions for the 
 management of workhouses common to the imited parishes, thus spreading 
 the cost over a Ictrger area, minimising the influence of local interests, enabling 
 each union to employ competent paid officials, and facihtating the classifica- 
 tion of the inmates. Power was reserved to two justices to order outdoor 
 relief in cases where one of the justices making the order certified, of his own 
 knowledge, that the recipient was, from old age or bodily infirmity, unable 
 to work. In aU other cases, reUef to the able-bodied was to be regulated 
 by the Commissioners' orders, and any rehef administered contrary to their 
 regulations was declared unlawful, and was to be disallowed. In pursuance 
 of these wide powers, the Poor Law Commissioners, appointed under the Act, 
 entrusted the ordinary administration of relief within each union to the 
 " relieving officers," under the direction of the Board of Guardians, subject to 
 the following, among other, regulations : (1) Except in cases of sickness or 
 accident, no relief is to be given in money to any able-bodied pauper, who 
 is in employment, nor to any part of his family. (2) If any able-bodied 
 male pauper applies to be set to work by the parish, one-half at least of the 
 relief is to be in kind. (3) No relief is to be given by payment of house- 
 rent, or by allowance towards the same. The first regulations were tem- 
 porary, designed as the first stage in a stricter administration of the law. 
 But the attitude of Parliament towards the complete prohibition of out- 
 door relie^land the nniversal^establishment of workhouses faithfully reflected 
 the feeling of the oountry. Round these twof points raged a prolonged contest. 
 
 ' Feb. 24, 1834. It had been ])reoedeil by the publication of Extr<Kta from Information 
 receivtd bp Hit MajMy't Oommiaionert, etc. (March 19, ' 
 
438 APPENDIX H.— POOR LAW 
 
 The workhouse test was denounced aa iTihnTnii.n • the houses were condenmed 
 as Bastilles of the poor ; the classification of the inntates was resisted as 
 contrary to nature. Though the Commissioners for some time steadily 
 peiaevered in their policy, it cannot be said that a complete victory rested 
 with them or with their successors (1847), the Poor Law Board. The points 
 which Parliament left open in 1834 are still those on which administrators erf 
 the Poor Law are divided. 
 
THE CORN LAWS 439 
 
 APPENDIX ni. 
 THE COBN LAWS. 
 
 A. Prices of Wheat, 1646-1911 (p. 440). 
 
 B. The Principal Acts relating to the Com Trade (p. 442). 
 
 C. The Assize of Bread (p. 448). 
 
 D. Exports and Imports of Com, 1697-1801 (p. 452). 
 
 E. Bounties paid on Exports of Com, 1697-1765 (p. 452). 
 
440 
 
 APPEKDIX m.— CORN LAWS 
 
 A. PRICES OF WHEAT, 1646-1911.1 
 (i) Statement 07 tee Aknttal Avebaoe Fbice of Wheat fbb Iupbbiaii 
 
 QtTABTEB AT EtON, FBOM THE YeAB 1646 TO 1770. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 Prices. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 Prices. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 Prices. 
 
 
 t. d. 
 
 
 <. d. 
 
 
 <. d. 
 
 1646 - 
 
 44 
 
 1688- 
 
 42 1 
 
 1730 - 
 
 33 6 
 
 1647 - 
 
 67 5 
 
 1689- 
 
 27 6 
 
 1731 - 
 
 30 
 
 1648 - 
 
 77 10 
 
 1690 - 
 
 31 8 
 
 1732- 
 
 24 4 
 
 1649 - 
 
 73 3 
 
 1691- 
 
 31 1 
 
 1733 - 
 
 25 11 
 
 1650- 
 
 70 2 
 
 1692- 
 
 42 8 
 
 1734 - 
 
 35 6 
 
 1661- 
 
 67 2 
 
 1693- 
 
 61 11 
 
 1735- 
 
 39 4 
 
 1652- 
 
 46 4 
 
 1694- 
 
 68 7 
 
 1736- 
 
 36 11 
 
 1653- 
 
 32 6 
 
 1696- 
 
 48 6 
 
 1737- 
 
 34 9 
 
 1654- 
 
 23 9 
 
 1696 - 
 
 65 
 
 1738 - 
 
 32 6 
 
 1665 - 
 
 30 6 
 
 1697 - 
 
 65 
 
 1739 - 
 
 35 2 
 
 1666- 
 
 39 4 
 
 1698- 
 
 62 7 
 
 1740 - 
 
 46 6 
 
 1657- 
 
 42 8 
 
 1699- 
 
 58 7 
 
 1741- 
 
 42 8 
 
 1668 - 
 
 69 6 
 
 1700- 
 
 36 7 
 
 1742- 
 
 31 1 
 
 1669 - 
 
 60 6 
 
 1701- 
 
 34 6 
 
 1743- 
 
 22 9 
 
 1660 - 
 
 61 8 
 
 1702- 
 
 26 11 
 
 1744- 
 
 22 9 
 
 1661 - 
 
 64 I 
 
 1703 - 
 
 33 
 
 1746- 
 
 26 2 
 
 1662 - 
 
 67 9 
 
 1704 - 
 
 42 7 
 
 1746 - 
 
 36 9 
 
 1663- 
 
 52 3 
 
 1706- 
 
 27 6 
 
 1747 - 
 
 31 10 
 
 1664 - 
 
 37 1 
 
 1706- 
 
 23 9 
 
 1748 - 
 
 33 10 
 
 1665 - 
 
 46 2 
 
 1707 - 
 
 26 1 
 
 1749- 
 
 33 10 
 
 1666- 
 
 33 
 
 1708- 
 
 37 11 
 
 1750 - 
 
 29 8 
 
 1667- 
 
 33 
 
 1709 - 
 
 71 11 
 
 1751- 
 
 35 2 
 
 1668- 
 
 36 7 
 
 1710- 
 
 71 6 
 
 1752- 
 
 38 3 
 
 1669 - 
 
 40 7 
 
 1711- 
 
 49 6 
 
 1763- 
 
 40 10 
 
 1670 - 
 
 38 1 
 
 1712- 
 
 42 5 
 
 1764 - 
 
 31 8 
 
 1671 - 
 
 38 6 
 
 1713- 
 
 46 9 
 
 1755- 
 
 31 
 
 1672- 
 
 37 6 
 
 1714- 
 
 46 1 
 
 1766 - 
 
 41 4 
 
 1673 - 
 
 42 8 
 
 1715- 
 
 39 4 
 
 1757 - 
 
 66 
 
 1674 - 
 
 62 10 
 
 1716- 
 
 44 
 
 1758- 
 
 45 9 
 
 1675- 
 
 69 2 
 
 1717- 
 
 41 10 
 
 1769- 
 
 36 4 
 
 1676 - 
 
 34 9 
 
 1718- 
 
 35 6 
 
 1760- 
 
 33 6 
 
 1677 - 
 
 38 6 
 
 1719- 
 
 32 
 
 1761- 
 
 27 7 
 
 1678 - 
 
 64 
 
 1720 - 
 
 33 10 
 
 1762- 
 
 36 9 
 
 1679 - 
 
 66 
 
 1721 - 
 
 34 4 
 
 1763 - 
 
 37 2 
 
 1680 - 
 
 41 3 
 
 1722- 
 
 33 
 
 1764- 
 
 42 8 
 
 1681- 
 
 42 8 
 
 1723 - 
 
 31 9 
 
 1765 - 
 
 49 6 
 
 1682 - 
 
 40 3 
 
 1724- 
 
 33 10 
 
 1766 - 
 
 44 5 
 
 1683 - 
 
 36 7 
 
 1725- 
 
 44 6 
 
 1767- 
 
 59 1 
 
 1684- 
 
 40 3 
 
 1726 - 
 
 42 1 
 
 1768 - 
 
 55 6 
 
 1685 - 
 
 42 8 
 
 1727 - 
 
 38 6 
 
 1769- 
 
 41 10 
 
 1686 - 
 
 31 1 
 
 1728 - 
 
 49 11 
 
 1770- 
 
 44 10 
 
 1687 - 
 
 23 
 
 1729- 
 
 42 10 
 
 
 
 1 The figares for 1646-1770 are taken from Returns Relating to the Importation ami, 
 Exportation of Com, etc. ; Parliamentary Paper 177 (1843), p. 17. Those for 1771-1910 
 are taken from Agricultmral Statistics, 1910, vol. xlv. pt. 3 [Od. 5786, pp. 232-35]. 
 The figure for 1911 is taken from the Jowmal of the Board of AgrictUture, Jan. 1912, 
 p. 890. 
 
PRICES OP WHEAT, 1771-1911 
 
 441 
 
 (ii) Statement of the Assvax. Average Fbioe or Bbitibh Wheat 
 IN EnoiiAnd and Waces, from 1771 to 1911. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Annual 
 Average 
 Prices per 
 Ixnpeiial 
 Quarter. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Annual 
 Average 
 Prices per 
 Imperial 
 Quarter. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 Prices per 
 Imperial 
 Quarter. 
 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 1771- 
 
 t. d. 
 48 7 
 
 1818- 
 
 «. d. 
 86 3 
 
 1866 - 
 
 I. d. 
 41 10 
 
 1772- 
 
 62 3 
 
 1819- 
 
 74 6 
 
 1866- 
 
 49 11 
 
 1773- 
 
 62 7 
 
 1820 - 
 
 67 10 
 
 1867- 
 
 64 6 
 
 1774 - 
 
 64 3 
 
 1821 - 
 
 56 1 
 
 1868- 
 
 63 9 
 
 1775- 
 
 49 10 
 
 1822 - 
 
 44 7 
 
 1869- 
 
 48 2 
 
 1776- 
 
 39 4 
 
 1823 - 
 
 63 4 
 
 1870- 
 
 46 11 
 
 1777- 
 
 46 11 
 
 1824- 
 
 63 11 
 
 1871 - 
 
 66 8 
 
 1778- 
 
 43 3 
 
 1826- 
 
 68 6 
 
 1872 - 
 
 67 
 
 1779- 
 
 34 8 
 
 1826 - 
 
 68 8 
 
 1873- 
 
 68 8 
 
 1780- 
 
 36 9 
 
 1827 - 
 
 68 6 
 
 1874- 
 
 66 9 
 
 1781- 
 
 46 
 
 1828- 
 
 60 6 
 
 1876 - 
 
 46 2 
 
 1782- 
 
 49 3 
 
 1829- 
 
 66 3 
 
 1876 - 
 
 46 2 
 
 1783 - 
 
 64 3 
 
 1830- 
 
 64 3 
 
 1877 - 
 
 66 9 
 
 1784 - 
 
 60 4 
 
 1831 - 
 
 66 4 
 
 1878- 
 
 46 6 
 
 1785 - 
 
 43 1 
 
 1832 - 
 
 68 8 
 
 1879- 
 
 43 10 
 
 1786- 
 
 40 
 
 1833- 
 
 62 11 
 
 1880- 
 
 44 4 
 
 1787- 
 
 42 5 
 
 1834- 
 
 46 2 
 
 1881 - 
 
 46 4 
 
 1788- 
 
 46 4 
 
 1836- 
 
 39 4 
 
 1882 - 
 
 46 1 
 
 1789- 
 
 62 9 
 
 1836- 
 
 48 6 
 
 1883- 
 
 41 7 
 
 1790- 
 
 64 9 
 
 1837- 
 
 56 10 
 
 1884- 
 
 36 8 
 
 1791 - 
 
 48 7 
 
 1838- 
 
 64 7 
 
 1886 - 
 
 32 10 
 
 1792- 
 
 43 
 
 1839 - 
 
 70 8 
 
 1886 - 
 
 31 
 
 1793- 
 
 49 3 
 
 1840 - 
 
 66 4 
 
 1887- 
 
 32 6 
 
 1794 - 
 
 62 3 
 
 1841 - 
 
 64 4 
 
 1888- 
 
 31 10 
 
 1795 - 
 
 76 2 
 
 1842 - 
 
 67 3 
 
 1889 - 
 
 29 9 
 
 1796 - 
 
 78 7 
 
 1843 - 
 
 60 1 
 
 1890- 
 
 31 11 
 
 1797 - 
 
 63 9 
 
 1844- 
 
 61 3 
 
 1891 - 
 
 37 
 
 1798- 
 
 61 10 
 
 1845- 
 
 60 10 
 
 1892 - 
 
 30 3 
 
 1799 - 
 
 69 
 
 1846- 
 
 64 8 
 
 1893 - 
 
 26 4 
 
 1800- 
 
 113 10 
 
 1847- 
 
 69 9 
 
 1894 - 
 
 22 10-^ 
 
 1801 - 
 
 119 6 
 
 1848- 
 
 60 6 
 
 1896 - 
 
 23 1 
 
 1802 - 
 
 69 10 
 
 1849- 
 
 44 3 
 
 1896 - 
 
 26 2 
 
 1803- 
 
 68 10 
 
 1850 - 
 
 40 3 
 
 1897 - 
 
 30 2 
 
 1804 - 
 
 62 3 
 
 1851 - 
 
 38 6 
 
 1898- 
 
 34 
 
 1806 - 
 
 89 9 
 
 1852 - 
 
 40 9 
 
 1899- 
 
 25 8 
 
 1806 - 
 
 79 1 
 
 1853- 
 
 63 3 
 
 1900 - 
 
 26 11 
 
 1807 - 
 
 75 4 
 
 1854- 
 
 72 6 
 
 1901- 
 
 26 9 
 
 1808- 
 
 81 4 
 
 1866- 
 
 74 8 
 
 1902 - 
 
 28 1 
 
 1809- 
 
 97 4 
 
 1866 - 
 
 69 2 
 
 1903- 
 
 26 9 
 
 1810- 
 
 106 6 
 
 1857 - 
 
 66 4 
 
 1904- 
 
 28 4 
 
 1811- 
 
 96 3 
 
 1858 - 
 
 44 2 
 
 1906- 
 
 29 8 
 
 1812- 
 
 126 6 
 
 1859- 
 
 43 9 
 
 1906- 
 
 28 3 
 
 1813- 
 
 109 9 
 
 1860- 
 
 63 3 
 
 1907- 
 
 30 7 
 
 1814 - 
 
 74 4 
 
 1861 - 
 
 65 4 
 
 1908- 
 
 32 
 
 1815- 
 
 65 7 
 
 1862 - 
 
 66 5 
 
 1909 - 
 
 36 11 
 
 1816- 
 
 78 6 
 
 1863 - 
 
 44 9 
 
 1910- 
 
 31 8 
 
 1817- 
 
 96 11 
 
 1864- 
 
 40 2 
 
 1911- 
 
 31 8 
 
442 APPEKDIX m.— CORN LAWS 
 
 B. PRINCrPAL ACTS OF PARLIAMENT AFFECTZNG THE 
 CORN TRADE. 
 
 1360. 34 Edw. HI. c. 20. — ^Prohibiting exportation of com, except by the 
 King's license for the supply of Calais and Gascony. 
 
 1393. 17 Rio. n. c. 7. — Permitting the export of com, except to the 
 King's enemies, subject to the power of the King's Council to restrain exporta- 
 tion in the interests of the nation. 
 
 1436. 15 Hen. VI. c. 2. — Permitting the exportation of com, without the 
 royal license, when the price of wheat at the place of shipment did not exceed 
 6s. 8d. per quarter, and at proportionate prices for other grains. 
 
 1463. 3 Edw. IV. c. 2. — ^Prohibiting the importation of foreign com, 
 when the price of wheat at the place of import did not exceed 6s. 8d. per 
 quarter, and at proportionate prices for other grains. 
 
 1633. 26 Hen. VIII. c. 2. — ^Prohibiting the export of com without the 
 royal license. 
 
 16S1-2. 6 and 6 Edw. VI. c. 14. — ^Persons engrossing com (i.e. buying 
 com to sell again) were subjected to heavy penalties, and, on a third ofEence, 
 to the pillory, forfeiture of goods, and imprisonment. Persons were, how- 
 ever, permitted to engross com, provided that they did not forestall it, or 
 regrate it (i.e. hold it for a rise), when the price of com did not exceed 6s. 8d. 
 per quarter. Farmers buying com for seed were compelled to sell an equiva- 
 lent amount, or forfeit double what they had bought. 
 
 1664. I P. and M. c. 6. — ^Restoring freedom of exportation when the 
 price of wheat did not exceed 6s. 8d, per quarter, and of other grains in 
 proportion. 
 
 1562-3. 5 Eliz. c. 12. — Corn-badgers, i.e. persons buying com at open 
 fairs and markets, were required to take out licenses and to give security 
 not to engross, forestall, or buy otherwise than at open fairs and markets. 
 
 1662-3. 6 Eliz. c. 6. — ^Freedom of exportation from ports specially licensed 
 by the Crown extended when the price of wheat did not exceed 10s. per 
 quarter and of other grains in proportion. 
 
 1570. 13 Eliz. c. 13. — ^Providing for the annual settlement of the average 
 prices by which exportation was regulated. The Lord President and the 
 Council in the North, the Lord President and the Council in Wales, and the 
 Justices of Assize, within their respective jimsdictions, were yearly, upon 
 conference, had with the inhabitants of the country, on the cheapness and 
 dearth of all kinds of grains, to determine the averages for the year, and 
 permit or prohibit the exportation of grain. 
 
 Com could be exported freely to any foreign country subject to a customs 
 duty of Is. per quarter of wheat imd other grains in proportion, when no pro- 
 clamation was issued to the contrary. 
 
 1693. 36 Eliz. c. 7. — ^Permitting exportation of grain subject to a customs 
 duty of 2s. per quarter of wheat, and other grains in proportion, when the 
 prices of wheat did not exceed 20s. per quarter and other grains in proportion. 
 
 1604. 1 Jac. I. c. 26. — ^Raising the limit of price for the export of wheat 
 to 26s. 8d. per quarter and other grains proportionately. 
 
 1623. 21 Jac. I. c. 28. — ^Raising the export limit for wheat to 328. per 
 quarter and for other grains in proportion. 
 
 1660. 12 Car. II. c. 4. — The export of com was permitted whenever the 
 prices at the port of exportation did not exceed, for wheat, 40s. per quarter ; 
 rye, pease, and beans, 24s. ; barley and malt, 20s. ; oats, 16b. The poundage 
 en exportation amounted to Is. per quarter for wheat, 4d. for oats, and 6d. 
 

 ». 
 
 d. 
 
 per quarter 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 »t 
 
 >t 
 per last of 
 12 barrels 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 4 
 3 
 2i 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 ACTS AFFECTING SALES OF CORN, 1660-74 443 
 
 for other grain. The import rates, from poondage, were as follows, sabject 
 to an allowance of 6 per cent, for discomit : 
 
 Wheat and buck-wheat, when not exceeding 44s. 
 
 at the port of importation. 
 Ditto, exceeding 448., 
 
 Bye, beans, barley, and malt, when not exceed- 
 ing 36s., - .... 
 Ditto, exceeding 36s., .... 
 Oata and pease, - ... 
 
 Meal of wheat or rye, - ... 
 
 1663. 15 Car. II. c. 7.' — Com was allowed to be exported when the prices 
 did not exceed the following sums per quarter at the places of shipment : 
 Wheat, 48s. ; lye, pease, and beans, 32s. ; barley, buck-wheat, and malt, 
 28s. ; oats, ' 13s. 4d. The import duties were increased to the sums under- 
 mentioned, on com, when not exceeding the same prices at the port of 
 importation : 
 
 Wheat, when not exceeding 488. per quarter, ... 
 Bye, pease, and beans, when not exceeding 328. per quarter. 
 Barley and malt, when not exceeding 288. per quarter, 
 Oats, when not exceeding 138. 4d. per quarter, - 
 Buck-wheat, when not exceeding 288. per quarter, 
 
 1670. 22 Car. II. c. 13. — Intituled "An Act for the Improvement of 
 TiUage," com might be exported, although the prices exceeded the sums 
 fixed by 15 Car. H. c. 7, paying poundage as before, viz. Is. per quarter on 
 wheat, 4d. on oats, and 6d. on other grain. Bates of duty on importation 
 were imposed, in lieu of poundage, on com when imder certain prices at the 
 port of importation, as follows : 
 
 On wheat, when not exceeding 53b. 4d. per quarter. 
 Ditto, exceeding SSs. 4d., and not above 80a. per quarter, - 
 Bye, pease, and beans, when not exceeding 40s. per quarter. 
 Barley, malt, sad buck-wheat, when not excee(Ung 32s. per 
 quarter, --- ..... 
 
 Oats, when not exceeding 16s. per quarter. 
 Wheat-flour — as Wheat. 
 When exceeding those prices, poundage as before was chargeable, viz. 4d. 
 on wheat, 3d. on rye, beans, barley, and malt, 2^. on oats and pease. 
 
 1689. 1 William and Maiy, c. 12. — ^Bounties were granted on the exporta- 
 tion of the following articles, ground or unground : 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Wheat, 6s. per quarter, when the price was at or under - 48 
 
 Bye, 38. 6d. per quarter, when the price was at or under - 32 
 Barley and malt, 28. 6d. per quarter, when barley was at or 
 
 under - 24 
 
 1707. 6 Anne, c. 29. — Bounties were allowed on the export of the 
 following : 
 
 Beer or bigg, 2s. 6d. per quarter, when the price was at or s. d. 
 vmder - - - - - - - 24 
 
 Malt made of wheat, 6s. per quarter, - - - - - 48 
 
 Oatmeal, 2s. 6d. per quarter, when oats were - - - 16 
 
 1774. 13 Geo. m. c. 43, from 1st January. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
444 
 
 APPENDIX m.— CORN LAWS 
 
 Hxmsa ON Ihfobtation. 
 
 Whenever the prices of middling British com at the port of importation 
 were at or above the following sums, the undermentioned rates were to be 
 paid : 
 
 Prices. Dnty. 
 
 Wheat (and buck-wheat), - 48s. - 6d. per qr. on wheat. 
 
 2d. per cwt. on flour. 
 Bye, pease, and beans, - - 328. - 3d. per qr. 
 
 Barley, beer or bigg, - - 24b. - 2d. per qr. 
 
 Oats, 16s. - 2d. per qr. 
 
 When the prices were under those stmis, the former scale of duties became 
 chargeable ; in which case, com and flour were allowed to be warehoused at 
 the principal ports, paying, on deUvery for home consumption, such duty as 
 might be due at that time. 
 
 EXPOBT. 
 
 The export to foreign parts of com or meal, flour, malt, and bread and 
 biscuit made therefrom, was prohibited when British com was at or above 
 the following sums, per quieter, at the port of exportation : wheat, 44s. ; 
 rye, pease, and beans, 288. ; barley, beer or bigg, 22s. ; oats, I4s. 
 
 BOTTNTIBS ON BSITISH COBN, GeOTTNT) OB tJNaBOTTND, EXFOBTED IN 
 
 BBinsE Ships. 
 
 When the prices of middling com were under the following sums at the 
 port from which exported, viz. : 
 
 44s. A bounty allowed of 6s. per quarter 
 on wheat, and malt made there- 
 from. 
 288. A bounty allowed of 3s. per quarter 
 
 on rye. 
 22s. A bounty allowed of 2b. 6d. per 
 quarter on barley, beer or bigg, 
 and on malt made therefrom. 
 14a. A bounty allowed of 2b. per quarter 
 on oats, cmd 2b. 6d. per quarter 
 on oatmeal, at the rate 276 
 lbs. to the quarter. 
 1791. 31 Geo. m. c. 30, from 16th November. — ^In order to ascertain the 
 average home price of com, the Act directed that the maritime counties of 
 £!ngland should be divided into twelve districts, and that the prices, ascertained 
 separately for these districts, should regulate the duties and bounties in each. 
 The export of wheat was prohibited, when wheat was at or above 46s. per 
 quarter. The export of other com or meal was prohibited at proportionate 
 prices. The duties on imported wheat were as follows : 
 
 Wheat, - 
 
 Bye, - 
 
 Barley, beer or bigg, 
 
 Oats, • 
 
 From Ireland, or British Colonies or 
 Plantations in North America. 
 
 From other parts. 
 
 Under 48s. per qr.. 
 
 At or above 488. but under 628., 
 
 At or above 62s., ■ ■ - 
 
 Under 60s., - . . . 
 At or above 60s. but under 648., 
 At or above 648,, - ■ ■ 
 
 : d. 
 
 24 3 
 
 2 6 
 
 6 
 
 The importation of other species of grain was regulated by proportionate 
 duties at proportionate prices. 
 
ACTS AFFECTING SALES OF CORN, 1796-1804 445 
 
 1796. 36 G«o. m. c. 21. — Bounties granted (for the first time) on com 
 imported at certain ports in British or neutral vessels, from 24th September, 
 1795, to 30th September, 1796, viz. : 
 
 Wheat and flour from any port of Europe, south of Cape Finisterre, from 
 the Mediterranean or Africa : 
 
 20s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not' 
 
 lees than 440 lbs., 
 16s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not 
 
 less than 424 lbs., 
 6s. on every cwt. of wheat-flour, 
 
 Until the quantity of 
 such wheat and flour 
 together amounts to 
 400,000 quarteis. 
 
 Wheat and flour from other parts of Europe (not British Dominions) : 
 16s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not^ 
 
 less thim 440 lbs., - - - - Until the quantity 
 
 12s. on eveiy quarter of wheat weighing not V amounts to 600,000 
 
 less than 424 lbs., - - - - I quarters, 
 
 4s. 6d. on every cwt. of wheat-flour, - -J 
 
 Wheat and flour from the British Colonies or the United States of America : 
 20s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not" 
 
 less than 440 lbs., 
 16s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not 
 
 less than 424 lbs., 
 6s. on every cwt. of wheat-flour. 
 
 On wheat and flour exceeding the quantities to which the beforementioned 
 bounties are limited : 
 
 10s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not less than 440 lbs. 
 8s. on every quarter of wheat weighing not lees than 424 lbs. 
 3s. on every cwt. of wheat-flour. 
 
 Idsian Cobn axd MeaIi. 
 6s. for every quarter of com, -\ Until the quantity together amounts 
 
 Until the quantity 
 amounts to 600,000 
 quarters. 
 
 Is. 6d. for every cwt. of meal, -/ to 600,000 quarters. 
 3s. for every quarter of com, - ] Exceeding the limi 
 Is. for every cwt. of meal, -J 600,000 quarters. 
 
 Tim. 
 
 IDs. for every quarter weighing not less than 400 lbs. until the quantity 
 
 amounts to 100,000 quarters. 
 6s. for every qiuirter exceeding the limited quantity of 100,000 quarters. 
 
 N.B. — On warehoused com delivered out within three months, three-fifths 
 of the bounty granted on the importations from the Mediterranean, allowed. 
 (2J cwt. of wheat-flour deemed equal to one quarter of wheat, and 3^ cwt. 
 of TTirJinTi meal to one quarter of Indian com.) 
 
 1804. 44 Geo. m. c. 109, from 16th November. — ^The plan for ascertain- 
 ing the average prices, as laid down by the Act of 1791, was altered, and it 
 was now directed that importation and exportation should be regulated in 
 England by the aggregate average of the 12 maritime districts into which it 
 was divided, and in Scotland by the aggregate average of the four Scotch dis- 
 tricts. The averages were to be taken four times a year. In 1806, by 
 46 Geo. m. c. 86, the plan was again altered, and it was arranged that the 
 prices both in England and Scotland should be regulated by the average 
 prices of the 12 English maritime districts. 
 
446 
 
 APPENDIX in.— CORN LAWS 
 
 1814. 64 Geo. III. c. 69, from 17th June. — Com, grain, meal, and flour 
 (bread and biscuit added by Treasury Order), to be exported at all times 
 without payment of duty, and without receiving any bounty. 
 
 1816. 66 Geo. III. c. 26, from March 23. — ^Foreign and colonial com, meal, 
 or flour might be at all times imported, and warehoused, without payment 
 of duties ; but it could only be taken out of warehouse for home consumption, 
 or entered for the hke purpose on importation, whenever the prices of British 
 com should be at or above the following sums, and then duty free : 
 
 For Corn of the British 
 
 ColonieB in North 
 
 America. 
 
 For Com not of the 
 
 British Colonies in 
 
 North America. 
 
 Wheat, 
 
 Bye, pease, and beans. 
 Barley, beer or bigg, 
 Oats, - 
 
 67s. per quarter. 
 
 44s. 
 
 33s. 
 
 22s. 
 
 80s. per auarter. 
 63s. '„ 
 
 40s. 
 27s. 
 
 1822. Table of duties payable by Act 3 George IV. c. 60, on wheat when 
 admitted for home consumption : 
 
 From the British Colonies or 
 Plantations of North America. 
 
 From other parts. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Addi- 
 tional 
 for the 
 
 When the average prices of 
 British Wheat should be 
 
 When the average prices of British 
 Wheat should be 
 
 ll\ 
 
 Under 678. per quarter. 
 At or above 67s., but vmder 
 
 718., 
 
 At or above 7 Is., 
 
 Under 80s. per quarter. 
 
 At or above 80s., but under 
 
 85s., 
 At or above 85s., 
 
 12b. 
 
 6s. 
 
 iB. 
 
 6s. 
 6s. 
 
 The importation of other grain was regulated by proportionate prices 
 and duties. 
 
 1825. 6 Geo. IV. c. 64 (temporary). — The prohibitions and restrictions 
 upon the importation of wheat, the produce of the British possessions in 
 North America, and the duties payable thereon, under the Acts of 1816 and 
 1822, were suspended from 22nd June, 1825, until the end of the then next 
 session of Parliament, during which period such wheat might be entered for 
 home consumption, whatever might be the average price of British com, on 
 payment of a duty of 6s. per quarter. (The provisions of this Act expired 
 in July, 1827.) 
 
 1828. 9 Geo. IV. c. 60. — ^The duties on wheat imported from any foreign 
 country were as follows : When the average price of wheat is 
 
 66s. and under 678., 
 
 the duty to be 20s. 8d. 
 
 per 
 
 quarter 
 
 67s. „ 68s. 
 
 I8s. 8d. 
 
 
 „ 
 
 68b. „ 69s. 
 
 16s. 8d. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 69s. „ 708. 
 
 13b. 8d. 
 
 
 
 
 70s. „ 71s. 
 
 lOs. 8d. 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 7 Is. „ 72b. 
 
 6s. 8d. 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 72s. „ 738. 
 
 28. 8d. 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 at or above 73s. 
 
 Is. Od. 
 
 
 
 f 
 
ACTS AFFECTING SALES OP CORN, 1828-69 447 
 
 The duties on wheat imported from any British Possession out of Europe 
 were as follows : When the average price of wheat is 
 
 Under 678. per quarter, the duty to be 6s. Od. 
 At or above 67s. „ „ Os. 6d. 
 
 The importation of other grain, foreign or colonial, was regulated by pro- 
 portionate prices and duties. 
 
 1842. 5 and 6 Vict. c. 14, from 29th April. — The Act of 1828 repealed and 
 another scale of duties imposed. The prices for the regulation of the duty 
 to be made up and computed on Thursday in each week from the returns 
 received of the sales of com the produce of the United Kingdom during the 
 preceding week ending Saturday, and a certificate thereof to be transmitted 
 to the officers of the Customs at the respective ports on the same day. 
 
 Bates of duty on wheat " Imported from any foreign country " (i.e. not being 
 the produce of and imported from any British Possession out of Europe). 
 
 
 Prieea 
 
 
 Duty per 
 qr. 
 
 a. d. 
 
 
 Prioee. 
 
 
 Duty per 
 qr. 
 
 >. d. 
 
 When under 61s. 
 
 . 
 
 ■ 20 
 
 When 62s. 
 
 and under 638., 
 
 - 10 
 
 61s. 
 
 and under 62a., 
 
 - 19 
 
 638. 
 
 
 64s., 
 
 - 9 
 
 52s. 
 
 
 558., 
 
 18 
 
 648. 
 
 
 65s., 
 
 - 8 
 
 65s. 
 
 
 56s., 
 
 - 17 
 
 658. 
 
 
 66s., 
 
 - 7 
 
 56s. 
 
 
 57s.. 
 
 - 16 
 
 66s. 
 
 
 69s., 
 
 - 6 
 
 67s. 
 
 
 58s., 
 
 - 15 
 
 69s. 
 
 
 708., 
 
 - 5 
 
 68s. 
 
 
 59s., 
 
 - 14 
 
 708. 
 
 
 7Is., 
 
 - 4 
 
 69s. 
 
 
 608., 
 
 13 
 
 71s. 
 
 
 728., 
 
 - 3 
 
 608. 
 
 
 6is., 
 
 - 12 
 
 72s. 
 
 
 73s., 
 
 - 2 
 
 6lB. 
 
 
 62s., 
 
 U 
 
 738. 
 
 and u 
 
 pwards. 
 
 1 
 
 Rates of duty on wheat, the produce of and imported from any British Possession 
 
 out of Europe. 
 
 When under 55s., - -60 
 
 56s. and under 66s., -40 
 568. „ 57s., - 3 
 
 When 57s. and imder 68s., - 2 
 58s. emd upwards, 1 
 
 These duties ceased to apply to wheat and flour, the produce of Canada, 
 imported after 10th October, 1843. See 1843. 
 
 The importation of other grain, foreign or colonial, was regulated by pro- 
 portionate prices and duties. 
 
 1843. 6 and 7 Vic. c. 29. — In consideration of a duty of 3s. per quarter 
 having been imposed by the Legislature of Canada on wheat imported into 
 that province from other places than the United Kingdom or British 
 Possessions, the duty on wheat and wheat flour, the produce of Camada, 
 imported into the United Kingdom after 10th October, 1843, and during 
 the continuance of the duty of 3b. in Canada, is to be at all times Is. per quarter 
 on wheat, and on fioiu, for every 196 lbs. a duty equal to that payable on 
 38^ gallons of wheat (or 4|d. per cwt.). 
 
 1846. 9 and 10 Vict. c. 22. — ^From Feb. 1, 1849, the following fixed rates 
 of duty on com, meal and flour came into operation in lieu of those previously 
 levied under the same Act : 
 
 Wheat, barley, beer or bigg, oats, rye, pease, and beans. Is. per qr. 
 Wheatmeal and flour, barley meal, oatmeal, rye, meal 
 
 and flour, pea meal and bean meal, - - 4^. per cwt. 
 
 1869. The duties on com were entirely repealed from the Ist June by 32 
 and 33 Vic. c. 14. 
 
448 APPENDIX IH.— CORN LAWS 
 
 C. THE ASSIZE OF BREAD.i 
 
 The Assize of Bread, like the Assize of Ale, formed port of the system by 
 which, in the interests of consumers, prices of food and drink were regulated. 
 The Assize is defined in one of the most famous of mediaeval statutes — ^the 
 AsaUa Pania et Cervisice. But though the name is familiar, the date of the 
 statute is uncertain. Probably passed towards the end of the reign of 
 Henry III. (1266 t), that part of it which referred to bread, though revised 
 and altered by subsequent legislation, remained in force for London till 1816, 
 and for the rest of the country till 1836. 
 
 It was the duty of Justices of the Peace to " set the Assize," in other words, 
 to adjust the weight, quality, and price of bread to the current prices of 
 wheat, with the addition of an allowance for the labour and skill of the baker. 
 The method, by which this adjustment was effected, was extremely com- 
 plicated. It started with the legal hability of the baker to make 418 lbs. of 
 bread out of every quarter of wheat. The first step was to ascertain the 
 average price fetched by a quarter of wheat in the pubhc markets of the 
 neighbourhood. The next step was to add to this price the discretionary 
 allowances for the expenses and skill of the baker. These two sums, added 
 together, represented the total sum for which the 418 lbs. were to be sold. 
 The last step was to calculate the exact weight of bread which each penny 
 would buy, in order that the whole 418 lbs. might realise the ascertained sum. 
 The table, thus calculated, was called the Assize of Bread : in it were given 
 the weights of the loaves which were to be sold at the customary prices. 
 The Assize was periodically proclaimed, and to seU bread above the price or 
 below the weight set out in the current table was a penal ofience. 
 
 The amount of bread to be made from each quarter of wheat remained 
 unaltered down to 1710 (8 Anne, c. 11), when it was reduced, it is said acci- 
 dentally, from 418 lbs. to 417 lbs. The allowance of the baker on each 
 quarter of wheat varied more widely. In 1497 it was 2s. But the Church 
 Bate, Education, Sanitary, Police, and Poor Bates, had not then to be taken 
 into consideration. In 1620 these payments entered into the calculation. 
 In that year the white bakers of London petitioned that the allowance should 
 be raised from 6s. to 8s., owing to their necessary expenses for food and 
 clothing, and " the teaching at school " of their children, their " duties to 
 the parson, the scavengers, for the poor, for watching and warding," etc. 
 The items of the allowances at the earlier period Bxe sometimes quaint, e.g. : ' 
 
 " Furnace and wood, .--.-.-- 6d. 
 
 The Miller, - 4d. 
 
 Two journeymen and two apprentices, - - - fid. 
 
 Salt, yeast, candle, and sackbands, - . . ■ . 2d. 
 
 Himself, his house, his wife, his dog and his cat, - . . 7d. 
 
 Iq aU - 2s. Od." 
 
 The average price of a quarter of wheat from 1463 to 1497 is said to have 
 been, in modem money, 14s. Id.' Taking this figure as an illustration, the 
 method of " setting the Assize " may be thus exemplified. The addition of 
 the discretionary allowance of 2s. to the price (14s. Id.) of the quarter of 
 wheat gives as the total 16s. Id. The justices had to calculate the weight 
 of each penny loaf, so that the whole 418 lbs. of bread might be sold to realise 
 
 'The Asaize of Bread is fully treated in G. Atwood's Beview of the Statutes and 
 Ordincmces of Assize, 1202-1797 (1801), and in an artiole by Sidney and Beatrice Webb 
 in The Economic JowmU for June, 1904, pp. 196-218. 
 
 Quoted by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in "The AsBize of Bread" (Economic Jowmal, 
 June, 1904, p. 197). 
 
 > Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, M'Culloch's edition (1850), p. 117. 
 
THE ASSIZE OF BREAD 449 
 
 1 6s. Id. The table of weights and prices, so compnted and proclauned, was 
 the Assize of Bread. Besides his allowance, the baker had for his profits 
 the oSals, and his " Eulvantage bread," consisting of the additional amount 
 which he could make out of the quarter of wheat over and above the fixed 
 418 lbs. of bread. The flour which the baker obtained from the miller was 
 to be worked up into three different qualities of bread. Their proportionate 
 values were fixed. Thus, when one penny would buy 1 lb. of " bread treet," 
 or household bread, it would approximately buy } lb. of " bread of the whole 
 wheat " or wheaten bread, or ^ lb. of " waatell," or white bread. Put in 
 another way, when the finest white bread cost one penny a pound, the pound 
 of wheaten and of household bread could be bought at the approximate 
 prices of three-farthings and of one halfpenny respectively. 
 
 It is difficult to say whether Assizes of Bread were in the Stewart period 
 very generally set. They were certainly much more frequently proclaimed 
 in towns than in country districts where bread was usually baked at home. 
 By the end of the seventeenth century, the practice seems to have fallen into 
 disuse, even in corporate towns. An attempt to revive it was made by 
 the Government in 1710 in the interests of consumers. The stotutory allow- 
 ance of bakers was raised to twelve shillings per quarter, and, as has been 
 already stated, the amount of bread to be made from the quarter of wheat 
 was reduced from 418 lbs. to 417 lbs. A still more important change was 
 necessitated by the intervention of a new class of trader between the baker 
 and the wheat-grower. The industrial organisation had become more com- 
 pUcated than it was in the Middle Ages. Bakers no longer bought their 
 quarters of wheat direct from the farmer, carried them to the mill, paid the 
 miller for grinding, and carried away the product in the form of flour and 
 ofials. Now millers themselves bought the wheat from the growers, ground 
 it into flour, separated it into difierent quaUties, and sold them at different 
 prices to the bakers. These changed conditions were most inefiectively met 
 by empowering the justices, at their option, to calculate their tables on the 
 prices either of wheat or of flour. The local prices, thus settled by the justices 
 and returned to the Custom House officers, supplied the statistics by which, 
 under the Com Laws, the boimties, the prohibitions of exports, and the duties 
 on imports were to a great extent regulated. 
 
 The Act of 1710 remained unaltered till 1768. If no other proof existed, 
 it might be concluded from this fact, that the prices of wheat remained low. 
 When the prices of food rose, pubhc discontent was generally expressed in a 
 demand for some change in the laws by which they were regulated. Prac- 
 tices which, though irritating, were tolerated in days of cheapness, became 
 in times of scarcity burdensome beyond endurance. Complaints were tJways 
 numerous, but mostly from the trade. It was, for instance, alleged that 
 coimtry districts were unprotected against frauds by neglect of the practice 
 of setting Assizes which had proved beneficial in towns ; that the informers 
 who profited by the penalties under the Act were mischievously active ; 
 that bakers could not, owing to their dependence on the millers, comply with 
 the regulations ; that the wheat prices were improperly taken ; that the 
 beet white bread could not be produced at the prices fixed in the tables ; 
 that the lower quality of bread was largely adulterated by the use not only 
 of alum but of burnt bones, chalk, lime, and whiting ; that the poorest 
 classes refused to eat any breful except that made from the whitest flour, 
 and sacrificed the nourishment of wheat to an absurd fashion. The last 
 complaint illustrates the tendency of history to repeat itself. The pamphlets 
 of the day exhaust the subject of the " whole meal " agitation of 1911 ; but, 
 in the early part of the eighteenth century, the demand for white bread was 
 a sign of an improved standard of living. 
 
 The Act of 1710 remained in force till 1768. Among the bakers it was 
 
 2f 
 
460 APPENDIX IH.— CORN LAWS 
 
 unpopular; there is less evidence that it dissatisfied consumers. When 
 prices rose, it was human, since natural causes were beyond control, to blame 
 the method of setting the Assize. The year 1767 was one of scarcity ; by 
 the Bristol tables the penny loaf weighed only 4 oz. 14 dwt. There was an 
 immediate demand for a change in the law. In 1768 a new Act was passed 
 (31 Geo. n. c. 29), codifying the existing law, and introducing alterations 
 which seem to have been unduly favourable to bakers. Bread was to be 
 made of two qualities only, wheaten and household ; the number of pounds 
 to be sold per quarter was reduced from 417 to 366 ; bakers were allowed 
 to choose whether they would sell in their shops " assized " loaves, which varied 
 in weight but were fixed in price, or " prized " loaves, varying in price but 
 fixed in weight. The Statute fixes by a table of proportion the weight of 
 the Id. loaf of wheaten and of household bread, regulated by the price of 
 wheat and the baker's allowance. It also settles in the scune way the price 
 of the " prized " loaf. By a later Act the wheaten bread was to be stajnped 
 with W and the household with H. The " prized " loaf was the " peek 
 loaf," made from 2 gallons of wheat or 14 lbs. of fiour, and weighing 17 lbs. 
 6 oz., and its subdivisions — the half peck loaf (8 lbs. 11 oz.) ; the quarter 
 peck or qtuotem (4 lbs. 6^ oz.) ; and the half quartern (2 lbs. 2f oz.). To 
 prevent fraud, no baker was allowed to sell in the same shop " assized " as 
 well as " prized " loaves. The Assizes were to be periodically proclaimed 
 according to the fiuctuations in prices, and were not to remain in force more 
 than 14 days. 
 
 The Act of 1768 fell on troublous times. The period 1766-74 was one of 
 scarcity. The high prices of bread were attributed to the malpractices of 
 bakers and miUers. It was alleged that the changes in the law had allowed 
 them imusual opportunities for making excessive profits. It is possible that 
 this was the case. No assay of flour was attempted. Consequently, millers 
 were able to return their product as being of superior quality, though they 
 continued to supply the inferior grtuies, and bakers conformed to the Assize 
 by adulterating the standard of both the legalised classes of bread. An 
 agitation was begun, which resulted in the Act of 1773 (13 Geo. III. c. 62). 
 The number of pounds of bread to be sold out of each quarter of wheat was 
 restored to its former basis ; regulations were made prescribing the method 
 in which flour was to be dressed ; the old standard wheaten bread, which, 
 " according to the antient order and custom of the realm," had existed 
 " from time immemorial," wae again legalised, and was to be stamped S.W. 
 There were, therefore, once more three quaUties of bread — ^wheaten, standard 
 wheaten, and household. The proportionate cost of the three kinds was 
 also regulated. The same weights of wheaten, standard wheaten, and house- 
 hold were to be sold respectively at 8d., 7d., and 6d. No attempt was made, 
 except in the case of standard wheaten, to define the quality of the different 
 breads. Standard wheaten was to consist of the whole produce of the grain, 
 the bran or hull only excepted, and the flour of which it was made was to 
 weigh three-fourths of the wheat from which it was ground. 
 
 The new Act may have been as easily evaded as the old. But the fall in 
 prices after 1774 cheapened bread, and the contented consumer probably 
 attributed his relief to the success of the new law. The extraordmary rise 
 in prices which took place from 1794 to 1812 revived the whole question of 
 the e£Scacy of Assizes of Bread in aggravated form. In 1812 at Grantham 
 the weight of assized bread to be bought for one penny was only 4 oz. 6 dwt., 
 bringing the cost of the quartern loaf to Is. 4d. The rise was so unpre- 
 cedented, that millers and bakers were suspected of every variety of mis- 
 demeanour. Bakers especially were charged with reducing the weight, and 
 raising the price of bread beyond the limits justified by the advance in the 
 price of wheat. There was a general demand for the enforcement of the 
 
THE ASSIZE OF BREAD 451 
 
 Assize of Bread. In some districts, justices prohibited the sale of any kind 
 of bread except the standard wheaten. In others, they set the table of prices 
 so low that bakers refused to bake. The Assize was either disregarded, or 
 public subscriptions were raised to induce bakers to continue their trade. 
 The regulations naturally failed to lower prices, though some effect may have 
 been produced in compelling bakers to follow their variations. Among 
 other devices to reduce the price of wheat wtis the authority given to bakers 
 in 1795 (36 Geo. m. c. 22) to make and sell breckd, stamped with M, which 
 was mixed with other ingredients than com. But the people, for whose 
 relief the mixed bread was designed, resolutely refused to touch it. They 
 rejected even standard wheaten and household bread, and demanded the 
 finest and whitest bread. It was in vain that members of Parliament, Privy 
 Councillors, magistrates, aldermen, and vestrymen endeavoured to set the 
 fashion by eating the coarser qualities themselves. The people clung to 
 their improved standard of living, and bakers could only satisfy the tastes 
 and pockets of their customers by the production of white bread which was 
 artificially whitened by wholesale adulteration. 
 
 Efforts were made to improve the system of setting the Assize. In con- 
 sequence of the Report of a Select Parliamentary Committee, an amending 
 Act was passed in 1813 (53 Geo. m. c. 116). But the feeling was becoming 
 more and more general that regulations affecting prices of food were mis- 
 chievous, that legislation was powerless, and that, where laws failed, free 
 competition might succeed. Another Select Committee was appointed to 
 consider the " Laws relating to the Manufacture Sale and Assize of Bread." 
 On their Report in 1815, an Act was passed (65 Geo. III. u. 49), which applied 
 only to London and a metropolitan area of ten miles round. Bcikers were 
 permitted to sell loaves of specified weight at any price they chose. In 
 provincial towns the Assize still lingered. In 1821 a Report in favour of 
 complete freedom of trade was presented to the House of Commons by a 
 Conunittee appointed to consider the " Regulations relative to the Making 
 and the Sale of Bread." The immediate result of their Report wtis the Bread 
 Act of 1822 (3 Geo. IV. c. 106), which finally abolished all regulations of 
 weight or price in London. Its remoter effect was the application of a similar 
 Act to the provinces. In 1836 (6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 37) the Assize of Bread 
 was at last, after an existence of nearly six centuries, finally abolished. 
 
452 
 
 APPENDIX m.— CORN LAWS 
 
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APPENDIX IV.— GREGORY KING 
 
 453 
 
454 
 
 APPENDIX IV.— GREGORY KING, Etc. 
 
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ESTIMATE OF PRODUCE AND STOCK, 1688 455 
 
 Tabi,e 2. — ^The Land of England and Wales and ite Prodncts in 1 688. (Natural 
 and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition 
 oj England, 1696, by Oregoiy King ; ed. Chalmers, 1804, p. 62.) 
 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Value per Acre. 
 
 Sent. 
 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ 
 
 Arable land,> - - . . 
 
 9,000,000 
 
 6 6 
 
 2,480,000 
 
 Pasture and meadow. 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 8 8 
 
 5,200,000 
 
 Woods and coppices. 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 6 
 
 760,000 
 
 Forests, parks, and commons, - 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 3 8 
 
 670,000 
 
 Heaths, moors, mountains, and 
 
 
 
 
 barren land. 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 1 
 
 800,000 
 
 Houses and homesteads, gar- 
 
 
 
 
 dens and orchards, churches 
 and churchyards. 
 
 i,ooo,ooo| 
 
 The land 
 The buUdings 
 
 450,000 
 2,000,000 
 
 Bivers, lakes, meres, and ponds. 
 
 500,000 
 
 2 
 
 60,000 
 
 VBoads, ways, and waste land, - 
 
 500,000 
 
 
 
 InaU, 
 
 39,000,000 
 
 about 6 2 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 ' Davenamt on Trade (ed. Whitworth, toL a. p. 216) gives the arable area at 9 million 
 acres, and the area of pasture and meadows at 12 million acres. 
 
 Table 3. — An EsUmaU of the Live Stock of England and WaUs in 1688. 
 (Davenamt on Trade, ed. Whitworth, voL ii. p. 219.) 
 
 
 Yearly breed 
 
 The whole 
 
 Value of each 
 
 Value of the 
 
 
 or increase. 
 
 Stock. 
 
 ■kin. 
 
 Stock. 
 
 
 
 
 £ .. d. 
 
 £ 
 
 Beeves, sterks, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 calves. 
 
 800,000 
 
 4,600,000 
 
 2 
 
 9,000,000 
 
 Sheep and lambs, - 
 
 3,600,000 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 7 4 
 
 4,440,000 
 
 Swine and pigs. 
 
 1.300,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 16 
 
 1,600,000 
 
 Deer and fawns. 
 
 20,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 2 
 
 200,000 
 
 Goats and kids. 
 
 10,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 10 
 
 26,000 
 
 Hares and leverets,- 
 
 12,000 
 
 24,000 
 
 1 6 
 
 1,800 
 
 Babbits and coniee. 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 6 
 
 20.833 
 
 
 7,742,000 
 
 19,674,000 
 
 
 
 16,287,633 
 
456 
 
 APPENDIX v.— ESTIMATES OP CROPS 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Tablb 1. — Ettimatea of the Acreage of England and Waies and the 
 Area under different Mnde of Crops. 
 
 {An Inquiry into the State of National Subsistence, by W. T. Comber, 
 London, 1808. Appendix XXV.) 
 
 Crops. 
 Wheat, ... ... 
 
 Barley and lye, . . 
 
 Oats and beans, ..... 
 
 Clover, rye, grass, etc., .... 
 
 Roots and cabbages cultivated by the plough. 
 
 Fallow, 
 
 Hop-grounds, ...... 
 
 NuTseiy-gTOunds, ... 
 
 Fruit and kitchen gardens cultivated by the spade, 
 Pleasure-grounds, - ... 
 
 Lands depastured by cattle, ... 
 Hedgerows, copses, and woods, ... 
 Ways, water, etc., ... . 
 
 Total cultivated area. 
 Commons and waste lands, 
 
 Total acreage of England and Wales, 
 
 Acres. 
 
 3,160,000 
 
 861,000 
 
 2,872,000 
 
 1,149,000 
 
 1,160,000 
 
 2,297,000 
 
 36,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 41,000 
 
 16,000 
 
 17,479,000 
 
 1,641,000 
 
 1,316,000 
 
 32,027,000 
 6,473,000 
 
 38,600,000 
 
 Tabhb 2. — 1827. 
 
 (Select Committee on Emigration, 1827. Evidence of Mr. W. Couling. 
 Sessional Papers, 1827, vol. v., p. 361.) 
 
 Territorial 
 dlvlsioiis. 
 
 Arable land 
 and gardens. 
 
 Meadows, 
 
 pastures, and 
 
 marshes. 
 
 UncultiTated 
 
 Improveable 
 
 wastes. 
 
 UnimproTeable 
 
 wastes. 
 
 Total 
 acreage. 
 
 England, . 
 Wales, 
 
 Acres 
 10,262,800 
 890,670 
 
 Acres 
 
 16,379,200 
 
 2,226,430 
 
 Acres 
 3,464,000 
 630,000 
 
 Acres 
 3,266,400 
 1,106,000 
 
 Acres 
 
 32,342,400 
 
 4,762,000 
 
 Total, 
 
 11,143,370 
 
 17,606,630 
 
 3,984,000 
 
 4,361,400 
 
 37,094,400 
 
APP. VI.— VARIOUS METHODS OF PAYING TITHES 457 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 COLLECTION OF TITHES (1793-1815.) 
 
 The following variations in the methods of collecting tithes are mentioned 
 in the Beporte to the Board of Agriculture on the respective counties. 
 
 1. Eastebn AST) Nobth-Eastebn Couitties. 
 
 Bedford. A corn-rent generally adopted instead of an allotment of land 
 when enclosures are made. Few enclosed parishes continue tithable. Half 
 the parishes are Vicarages, and the great tithes are in the hands of lay impro- 
 priators. In about 10 parishes tithes are collected in kind. 
 
 Combe. Much tithe collected in kind, the hirer paying from 3b. to 6s. 4d. 
 per acre. Compositions average the same rate or higher. One-tenth of the 
 prime cost of purchased manures allowed by several titheowners. On 
 enclosures ^th of arable, }th of pasture, and ^th of fen, all fenced at the cost 
 of proprietors, allotted in lieu of tithe. 
 
 Essex. Average for great and small tithes is a composition of 3s. 9d. per 
 pound rent. 
 
 Herts. Titheowners generally moderate because the light soils could only 
 produce heavy crops under spring-dressings brought bora, a distance at 
 great cost. In 1813 there is no instance of tithe being taken in kind. 
 
 Hunts. Instead of land being allotted in lieu of tithes on enclosures, a 
 corn-rent varying with the price of com is generally arranged, 
 
 LiruxUn. Compositions average from |^th to ^th of the rent of arable land, 
 ^th to |th of meadow, ^th of rich pasture. Tithes exchanged for land on 
 enclosure. Much land unploughed in order to escape tithes. 
 
 Norfolk. Very little tithe collected in kind. Compositions average Ss. 6d. 
 an acre (1793) or 4s. 9d. (1803) on arable land and Is. 6d. for grass. 
 
 Suffolk. Some tithe taken in kind. Compositions, sometimes by the acre, 
 sometimes by the pound rent, vary in amount, but are generally much under 
 real value. 
 
 2. Sotpfh-Eabtern and East Medlams. 
 
 Berks. Great tithes compounded at 6s. in the pound rent ; small at Is. 3d. 
 
 Bucks. Lay impropriators lees careful of interests of parish than clerical 
 titheowners. Average of composition 4s. 6d. an acre. Out of 204 parishes 
 82 ore tithe free, i.e. extinguished by allotments of land in lieu ; 30 partly 
 and chiefly tithe free ; three pay a corn-rent, one a modus. The remaining 
 114 aie tithable. Only one tithe collected in kind. Compositions moderate. 
 
 Hants. Much tithe taken in kind ; composition from 4s. 6d. to 7s. on full 
 improved rent. 
 
 Kent. Much tithe let out to proctors who collect in kind. 
 
458 APPENDIX VI.— TITHES 
 
 JUidcUeaex, Tithe taken in kind, or annually compounded for ; some 
 parishes pay a modus. 
 
 Norihantt. Enclosed land generally tithe free. Average of tithes reckoned 
 at from Ss. to 3s. 6d. per acre over the whole open-field farm, including the 
 portion which is annually fallowed. The loss to the occupier, if tithe taken 
 in kind, estimated at Ss. to 63. per acre, 
 
 Notts. Tithes taken in kind, or compounded for : in new enclosures, land 
 generally ttUotted in lieu of tithe : moduses charged on particular products ; 
 lands originally belonging to religious houses generally tithe-free. 
 
 Oxford. Tithe averages Jth of rent : on enclosures ^th of arable cuid ^th of 
 pasture allotted in lieu. 
 
 Rutland. One-third of the land subject to tithes : on enclosures ^th of 
 arable and }th of greensward allotted in lieu. Clergy more reasonable in 
 collection than lay impropriators. 
 
 Surrey. Common opinion is that land tithe-free and worth 20s. an acre 
 is worth 13s. if subject to tithe. Tithes mean more than loss to a fanner ; 
 they cramp his energies. 
 
 Sussex. Compositions average 4s. 6d. an acre for wheat ; 2s. 6d. for 
 barley, oats, beans, or pease ; pasture and meadow 2s. These compositions 
 are " generally allowed to be moderate and very fair." 
 
 Warwick. Lay impropriators more rigorous in exactions than clergy. 
 Tithes generally compounded for at the rate of 68. to 128. per acre of tillage, 
 and from Is. 6d. to 6s. 6d. for meadow and pasture. 
 
 3. West MisiiANI) aitd So'DTH-WESXEBur Coxrsrma. 
 
 ComvxiB. Oreat or sheaf tithes generally in the hands of laymen who 
 farmed them out to proctors. In the hands of the clergy, small tithes were 
 generally compounded at Is. to Is. 3d. in the pound rent, and the great tithes 
 at from 2s. 6d. to 3a. 6d. in the pound rent. Lay tithes were either taken 
 in kind, or valued and agreed in the field at harvest. 
 
 Dorset. Tithes averaged on pasture and arable land 3s. 6d. an acre ; on 
 commons 8d., on downs 4d. A very low rnodus was common. Great tithes 
 were often in lay hands, and compositions were frequently 6s. or 68. in the 
 pound rent. 
 
 Olouoester. Tithes were generally compounded, but on yearly veduations. 
 The average on arable land was 6s. an acre, and on grass 2s. 6d. to Ss. When 
 land was allotted in lieu of tithes, commissioners generally allotted }th of 
 the arable and }th of the pasture, the land, so allotted to ^e titheowner, to 
 be fenced, and the fences repaired for 7 years, at the cost of the proprietors. 
 Very little tithe was taken in kind " at least among the clergy." 
 
 Hereford. Very little tithe taken in kind. Compositions averaged from 
 3s. 6d. to 48. in the pound rent. 
 
 Shropshire. Very little tithe taken in kind. Compositions generally fair 
 and equitable, either by annual valuations, or an agreed sum for a term of 
 years : averaged not more than 2s. in the poimd rent. 
 
 4. North akd North- Wsstbbn Cottntibs. 
 
 Cheshire. Lay tithes generally let on lease for 21 years. Some lay owners 
 collect a portion in kind and let the remainder, or have the tithes valued in 
 the field, and give farmers the option of taking or leaving the tithable produce 
 at the valuation. Hay was either tithed in kind or valued as above. Some- 
 times a trifling modus was paid. 
 
VARIOUS METHODS OF PAYING TITHES 459 
 
 Cumberland. Tithes generally taken in kind. A few parisheB pay a modus ; 
 others are tithe-free in consideration of a portion of the common bemg allotted 
 to the impropriator. 
 
 Derby. Survey and valuation made annually before harvest. The usual 
 rates charged are : hay, 2b. 6d. to 48. 6d. an acre ; wheat, 12s. to 148. ; oats, 
 7s. to lOs. 6d. ; barley, 10s. Often surveyors fix a gross sum for the parish, 
 which is paid by the principal occupier, and the proportions are adjusted 
 among the farmers themselves. 
 
 Lancaahire. Tithes in many places collected in kind ; com, ^th of the 
 crop ; hay, compounded for at Ss. per acre, and at 6s. for clover in the first 
 year. 
 
 Northumberland. Some tithes collected moderately, others rigorously; 
 some let the tithes at a fair rent for a term of years ; others value and let 
 every year, 
 
 Staffordshire. Tithes diminish the wheat-growing area : farmers decline 
 to sow com, and prefer to graze their land, because of the large sums demanded 
 by the tithingmen. 
 
 Westmoreland. Some tithes collected in kind, or farmers have the option 
 of taking at valuation. 
 
 Yorkshire, West. Great tithes often taken in kind ; but much reduced 
 by grazmg. 
 
 Yorkshire, North. Tithes in lay hands being extinguished by purchases 
 made by landowners ; in clerical hands, tithes being diminished by enclosures 
 and allotments of land in lieu. 
 
460 APP. Vn.-THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION 
 
 APPENDIX Vn. 
 
 THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 
 
 Table A. — Oenmte Betume for 1851, 1861, and 1871. i 
 
 Numbers amd OccttpaMons of those who were engaged in AgrwuUwre 
 in England and Wales in 1861, 1861, amd 1871. 
 
 • 
 
 1861 
 
 1861 
 
 1871 
 
 OocrnpATioNs. 
 
 
 
 
 (o) In Fields and Pastures. 
 
 
 
 
 Farmers and graziers. 
 
 249,431 
 
 249,736 
 
 249,735 
 
 Fanner's, grazier's son, grandson, etc.. 
 
 
 
 
 in the house, .... 
 
 111,604 
 
 92,321 
 
 76,466 
 
 Farm bailifi, ..... 
 
 10,561 
 
 15,698 
 
 16,476 
 
 Agricultural labourers, shepherds, and 
 
 
 
 
 cottagers, - . - . 
 
 966,514 
 
 983,824 
 
 962,348 
 
 Agricultural students. 
 
 104 
 
 190 
 
 760 
 
 Agricultural implement proprietors or 
 
 
 
 
 workers, .... 
 
 55 
 
 1.441 
 
 2,160 
 
 Land drainage service. 
 
 11 
 
 1.761 
 
 1,266 
 
 Others engaged in agriculture, - 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1,061 
 
 (6) Woods. 
 
 
 
 
 Woodmen, .... 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 7,865 
 
 (c) In Oardens. 
 
 
 
 
 Market gaideners. 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 112,786 
 
 Florists, nurserymen. 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 7.021 
 
 Domestic gardeners, .... 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Totals, 
 
 1,337,280 
 
 1,344,970 
 
 1,437,923 
 
CENSUS RETURNS, 1881, 1891, 1901 
 
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 tera, or other Belativt 
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 returned) - 
 Feurm BailifEs, Foremen, 
 Shepherds, - 
 Agricultural Laboure 
 
 Servants : 
 Distinguished as in 
 
 Cattle, 
 Distinguished as in 
 
 Horaes, 
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 No. 40, Domestic Gard 
 
 Gardeners (not Domes 
 
 serymen. Seedsmen, 
 
 Agricultural Machines — 
 
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 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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462 
 
 APP. Vm.— IMPORTS, 1866-90 
 
 o 
 a 
 
 CO 
 
 ® 
 
 00 
 
 i 
 
 M 
 
 
 i 
 
 si 
 
 Eh o 
 
 •s 
 
 rtMioaoe)'4)oiae)e)t-io«t>iee9'«o 
 
 eo«i>»oo-HpHoo-<eoost~oooot» — t- 
 ■*ioior-._(oe«t-«'*oot-eq!oe>oo«so — 
 
 ^toi>'^mo>mOMeo«N-H>o--iooo«o» 
 oioo-He«--oooooosioasi>osooioi>o» 
 t-" oo" cf -H tf M t^ oT •>* to* t-" os" 00 of OO" 00 M •* 
 
 u 
 
 Oats, Indian 
 Com, Barley, 
 Meal, Hops, 
 
 Rice, 
 Sugar, etc. 
 
 oiacorttocoeqewnr-oooocoioo 
 
 lO » -H_ MS ■* O « lO rt 00 T|l_ •* o m ■« « -H <o 
 
 cijoOFJ'eo-^t^cDO'ecoioeq'oMos'^oicrw 
 
 ^a>e«ioao«a3co«io<«aacoioi-ie>e'« 
 
 ««<c»>o>o-H-HO»oo-HO-Hm«e«mo> 
 
 efiit'i>ooioo'o5'No5'cJ'-««e»'t-"»'ei'r^eo 
 
 IS 
 
 1| 
 
 h 
 
 coostotoanooTHiaasr-os-Heiiooe^ 
 
 rtOcNNrt-TKNO^lOCOlOt-lOOOOO-HCO 
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 q)QOeOOor^t.ro't-^CDrHOS>0«'t*»0«r'*00 
 
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 o3 
 
 3 
 
 Fruit (Raw), 
 
 NuU (Edible), 
 
 and 
 
 Vegetables 
 
 (Raw). 
 
 FH^nMnteanoTHooooxoioet-e^ 
 osoo«a»'Oiom«OiO'*os-Ht~o50oaoos 
 
 =«»«■■ of o'®'io'«oo®'pr«'oJ'aroo «>■'«■*■* 
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 04 
 
 3 ■ 
 
 MCiSX»'*O»tOlOtOtO'*l>'*t-00'«N-N 
 
 oaooo^tooaooioioiot^iooatd^oaco^ 
 
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 t«ooM!OONei5ioorio'i-<"mrir-*'«ari>ofto 
 
 ei<-H(N(o-Hus«:-«(Ni>«oeo-<j('*«io-< 
 
 ■*" lO t-" t-.* to t-" t^ C> QO" oT -H o" 00 i> to* t-" o ■-<' 
 
 fH fH I— « pH 1— t 
 
 rH 
 
 Beef, Mutton, 
 Fork, Bacon, 
 
 Cheese, etc. 
 
 -<MO«tBe««-"000>o»>-<eo-*otootD 
 oort»iM-*«oioooo50iNaooiotoeoMeo 
 >^ooNtoe<5-*>HOO-Heios<5'«o» 1'* ■* 
 =«-*eJ'o?t-"t>'«iooooeif«'too'-Hm»eri> 
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 25 
 
 <o >H tt5'tD"t^ooorc3'«e<f eo ririo"«D"i>ao''orc5' 
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 aoooaDooooaoaooDoowooasaoaoaoooaoao 
 
IMPORTS OP AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE, 1891-1911 463 
 
 OC0Q0l>lO0S00e0C>'^Ttt0SI>-*I>Q0lO'^OO 
 
 '*»ot^«s«rcooreo'*ccoodoooooi«»-^ooi>'os 
 
 
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 « lo F^ »o o « CO ©if N 00 oi lo « lo ■*" CO o c?c4" <-r 
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 aa-«eO'-HOOcoa»^ioe40-^coc4iooe9coo 
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 oDio^coe403e4«io©coioioo©t«ooaoe4 
 03cooaDiooo»t^o^oi>aoe4ioc4'^^&4t^ 
 
 CO^t*QDCflCD©CDOCOQOi-<FH-^OD^COOO©<D 
 
 eoof^orcDoooioioei'«rcr»ooo'*oreO'-roroo 
 
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 M CO CO o as -^ CO CO lo co -^ m t- eo os^oo efl_» »o © 
 a)OdcDOdQO©i~'©©©©aoa3©©Aoo©io^ 
 
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 cot*eii©cot*oeoe!i©>-Hioiot*ocoaot><-Hko 
 
 COCO©asOS©^C0COI>»rtlOlOlOI>'^©W»Q0^ 
 
 coioi>'^e4'eo50-»iri0^^oooifarccrQoco'©»cr© 
 
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464 
 
 APP. IX.— AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AGRICULTURAL 
 TabTiT! I. — Total Acreage in England and Wales under each hind 
 
 
 
 1866. 
 
 1871. 
 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 
 Acres, 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Total Area (in statute Acres), - 
 
 32,590,397 
 
 4,734,486 
 
 32,590,397 
 
 4,734,486 
 
 Abstract ol Acreage under all kinds of 
 
 
 
 
 
 Crops, Bare Fallow, and Grass, 
 
 22,236,737 
 
 2,284,674 
 
 23,717,660 
 
 2,804,817 
 
 Com Crops — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wheat, ... . . 
 
 3,126,481 
 
 113,862 
 
 3,312,550 
 
 126,334 
 
 Barley or Bere, 
 
 1,877,387 
 
 146,323 
 
 1,964,210 
 
 189,751 
 
 Oats, - 
 
 1,503,990 
 
 251,893 
 
 1,454,144 
 
 253,672 
 
 Bye, - 
 
 50,570 
 
 2,452 
 
 67.775 
 
 2,338 
 
 Beans, - • - 
 
 492,686 
 
 3,534 
 
 512,929 
 
 4,071 
 
 Peas, 
 
 314,206 
 
 3,010 
 
 382,104 
 
 4,534 
 
 Total of Corn Crops, 
 
 7,365,170 
 
 521,074 
 
 7,683,692 
 
 660,700 
 
 Green Crops- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Potatoes, - 
 
 311,151 
 
 44,266 
 
 391,531 
 
 51,853 
 
 Turnips and Swedes, 
 
 1,610,610 
 
 62,442 
 
 1,592,933 
 
 89,833 
 
 Mangold, 
 
 254,081 
 
 3,864 
 
 351,523 
 
 7,380 
 
 Cabbage, K. Babi, and Bape, 
 
 159,539 
 
 1,329 
 
 174,643 
 
 1,062 
 
 Carrots, ... ... 
 
 15,598 
 
 295 
 
 18,634 
 
 341 
 
 
 'Vetches, Lucerne, and any other Crop "| 
 (except CSover or Grass), - - / 
 
 408.033 
 
 27,069 
 
 368,281 
 
 8,072 
 
 
 Vetches or Tares, . . . ." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lucerne, - 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 Beet Boot (except Sugar Beet), - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 After 1881 
 
 these item 
 
 3 appear se 
 
 paiately. 
 
 
 Sugar Beet, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i.MiBcellaneons (}reen Crops, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total of Green &opB, ... 
 
 2,759,912 
 
 130,265 
 
 2,897,545 
 
 136,541 
 
 Clover, Sainfoin, and Artificial and other! 
 Grasses under Botation, - - . j 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,296,087 
 
 256,722 
 
 2,694,870 
 
 875,086 
 
 Permanent Pasture, Meadow or Grass, not^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 broken up in Botation (ezcluslTe of I 
 
 8,998,027 
 
 1,267,721 
 
 9,881,833 
 
 1,494,465 
 
 Heath or Mountain Land), - - -) 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bare Fallow or Uncropped Arable Land, - 
 
 780,979 
 
 109,878 
 
 484,249 
 
 37,848 
 
 Hops, 
 
 66,662 
 
 14 
 
 60,022 
 
 7 
 
 Flax, 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 15,049 
 
 176 
 
 Small Fruit,* ..... 
 
 * Not separ 
 
 ately distin 
 
 jpilshed bef 
 
 OK 1888. 
 
APP. IX.— AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 
 
 465 
 
 IX. 
 
 STATISTICS, 186&-1911. 
 
 of Crop, Bare Fallows, Qraaa, Hops, Flax, and Small Fruit. 
 
 1881. 
 
 1891. 
 
 1901. 
 
 1911. 
 
 Bogland. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Englaxid. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Bngland. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 32,597,398 
 
 4,721,823 
 
 32,509,322 
 
 4,779,343 
 
 32,550,698 
 
 4,776,779 
 
 32,394,302 
 
 4,749.651 
 
 24,663,937 
 
 2,784,963 
 
 25,113,343 
 
 2,887,791 
 
 24,694,252 
 
 2,823.062 
 
 24,478,426 
 
 2,770,397 
 
 2,641,045 
 
 90,026 
 
 2,192,393 
 
 61,590 
 
 1,617,721 
 
 47,019 
 
 1,804,045 
 
 38,487 
 
 2,029,499 
 
 142,318 
 
 1,772,432 
 
 117,101 
 
 1,635,426 
 
 101,907 
 
 1,337,513 
 
 86,800 
 
 1,627,004 
 
 243,544 
 
 1,672,835 
 
 234,055 
 
 1,831,740 
 
 208;773 
 
 1,841,136 
 
 206,037 
 
 32,372 
 
 1,905 
 
 38,081 
 
 1,086 
 
 49,649 
 
 1,460 
 
 39,962 
 
 366 
 
 417,789 
 
 2,538 
 
 337,493 
 
 1,884 
 
 237,361 
 
 1,215 
 
 299,846 
 
 1,608 
 
 213,249 
 
 1,984 
 
 201,648 
 
 1,533 
 
 152,185 
 
 1,596 
 
 166,182 
 
 712 
 
 6,960,958 
 
 482,315 
 
 6,214,882 
 
 417,249 
 
 5,524,082 
 
 361,970 
 
 5,488,684 
 
 334,010 
 
 347,733 
 
 42,440 
 
 354,606 
 
 38,238 
 
 415,105 
 
 31,979 
 
 402,505 
 
 26,667 
 
 1,478,682 
 
 66,356 
 
 1,367,960 
 
 70,607 
 
 1,144,035 
 
 61,934 
 
 1,066,625 
 
 57,947 
 
 339,385 
 
 7,386 
 
 345,465 
 
 7,883 
 
 386,044 
 
 9,811 
 
 438,916 
 
 11,154 
 
 138,341 
 
 1,096 
 
 145,764 
 
 1,902 
 
 161,727 
 
 4,194 
 
 139,513 
 
 5,386 
 
 13,855 
 
 454 
 
 14,115 
 
 485 
 
 t probably 
 
 among 
 
 1 10.441 
 
 273 
 
 363,957 
 
 6,818 
 
 
 
 " Misc. Ore 
 
 en Crops " 
 
 below. 
 
 
 
 
 214,225 
 
 2,145 
 
 147,186 
 
 1,344 
 
 102,204 
 
 532 
 
 
 
 17,559 
 
 222 
 
 43,165 
 
 370 
 
 52,757 
 
 366 
 
 
 
 2,875 
 
 41^ 
 
 fTbis tota 
 
 1 probably 
 
 % " Carrots 
 
 " dedacted 
 
 
 
 
 
 includes 
 
 " Carrots." 
 
 Eromtbisto 
 
 tal-«ee 
 
 
 
 
 3 - 
 
 
 
 above. 
 
 
 
 
 169 
 
 
 104,003 
 
 847 
 
 117,680 
 
 775 
 
 
 
 67,712 
 
 659; 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,681,953 
 
 124,550 
 
 2,530,450 
 
 122,185 
 
 2,401,265 
 
 110,479 
 
 2,330,641 
 
 103,100 
 
 2,648,952 
 
 331,401 
 
 2,762,021 
 
 324,744 
 
 2,862,658 
 
 400,268 
 
 2,327,265 
 
 281,512 
 
 11,655,825 
 
 1,815,413 
 
 13,085,117 
 
 2,012,432 
 
 13,457,660 
 
 1,941,365 
 
 13,903,494 
 
 2,046,109 
 
 744,896 
 
 31,271 
 
 409,972 
 
 10,069 
 
 329,002 
 
 7,882 
 
 318,999 
 
 4,764 
 
 64,943 
 
 — 56,145 
 
 — 
 
 51,127 
 
 — 
 
 33,056 
 
 — 
 
 6,410 
 
 13 1,787 
 
 4 
 
 630 
 
 6 
 
 416 
 
 30 
 
 
 52,969 
 
 1,108 
 
 67,828 
 
 1,092 
 
 76,287 
 
 902 
 
 2g 
 
466 APP. IX.-AGRICULTURAL LIVE STOCK 
 
 TabTiT! II. — Agriouttu/rdl 
 
 
 1866. 
 
 1871. 
 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Horse*— Used solely lor Agriculture, 
 
 Unbroken horses, - - \ 
 Hares kept solely for breeding, - / 
 Unbroken horses 1 year and above, - 
 „ „ under 1 year. 
 
 No. 
 
 No 
 
 Setum 
 
 before 
 
 1869 
 
 No. 
 
 No 
 
 Keturn 
 
 before 
 
 1869 
 
 No. 
 733,2571 
 
 229,683 > 
 
 No. 
 68,7081 
 
 48,468 > 
 
 Total, - 
 
 
 
 962,840 
 
 117,176 
 
 Cattle— Cows and heifers In milk or in calf. 
 
 Other cattle : 2 years old and above. 
 Ditto, 1 year and under 2, - 
 Ditto, under 2 years old. 
 Ditto, under 1 year, - 
 
 1,290,629 
 
 946,976 
 1,069,630 
 
 222,646 
 
 133,560 
 186,295 
 
 1,460,693 
 
 981,295 
 1,229,076 
 
 250,661 
 
 118,006 
 228,032 
 
 Total, - 
 
 3,307,034 
 
 541,401 
 
 3,671,064 
 
 696,688 
 
 Sheep — 1 year old and above, - 
 Under 1 year old. 
 Ewes kept for breeding. 
 
 10,620,190 
 4,604,361 
 
 1,287,809 
 380,854 
 
 11,144,527 
 6,385,880 
 
 1,886,889 
 820,676 
 
 Total, - 
 
 16,124,641 
 
 1,668,663 
 
 17,630,407 
 
 2,706,416 
 
 Pigs, ... - . . 
 
 Sows kept for breeding, 
 
 Other Pigs, - - - . 
 
 2,066,299 
 
 191,604 
 
 2,078,604 
 
 225,466 
 
 ' Including Ponies. 
 
 2 Including Mares kept for breeding. 
 
APP. IX.— AGRICULTURAL LIVE STOCK 
 
 467 
 
 Live Stock. 
 
 1881. 
 
 1891. 
 
 1901. 
 
 1911. 
 
 Bngland. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 
 Wales. 
 
 No. 
 772,087 1 
 
 822,016 1 
 
 No. 
 72,208 » 
 
 65,559 » 
 
 No. 
 796,869 
 
 300,674 
 46,607 
 
 No. 
 80,646 
 
 67,015 
 12,626 
 
 No. 
 843,624' 
 
 223,430 
 94,860 
 
 No. 
 91,876 • 
 
 41,504 
 21,244 
 
 No. 
 843,632 * 
 StaUlona ■ 
 6,323 
 
 195,573 
 87,053 
 
 No. 
 
 93,117 » 
 StalUons' 
 1,495 
 
 36,443 
 20,367 
 
 1,094,103 
 
 137,767 
 
 1,143,050 
 
 150,186 
 
 1,161,914 
 To 
 
 154,624 
 s, 
 
 tal, - 
 
 1,132,581 
 126,741 
 
 161,442 
 11,175 
 
 
 1,258,322 
 
 162,697 
 
 1,621,249 
 
 1.103,389 
 1,435,447 
 
 260,480 
 
 132,753 
 262112 
 
 1,917,078 
 
 1,114.301 
 1,838,836 
 
 294,599 
 
 126,832 
 337,878 
 
 1,887,414 
 
 1,059,495 
 944,205 
 
 900,421 
 
 In Milk, 
 
 280,899 
 In Calf but 
 
 not in 
 
 Milk, 
 94,472 
 
 179,914 
 
 187,798 
 
 1,630,039 
 
 478,461 
 
 1,038,708 
 1,037,107 
 
 989,661 
 
 237,355 
 
 47,025 
 
 89,607 
 174,470 
 
 191,814 
 
 4,160,085 
 
 656,345 
 
 4,870,216 
 
 769,309 
 
 4,791,535 
 
 743,078 
 
 5,173,976 
 
 740,271 
 
 9,818,862 
 6,664,004 
 
 1,771,218 
 695.732 
 
 10,783,208 
 7,091,514 
 
 2,139.367 
 1,004,669 
 
 3,420,482 
 6,282,168 
 5,845,407 
 
 846,698 
 1,217,963 
 1,364,078 
 
 3,359,816 
 6,419,616 
 6,960,099 
 
 795,578 
 1,285,667 
 1,509,976 
 
 15,882,856 
 
 2,466,946 
 
 17,874,722 
 
 3,233,036 
 
 16,648,057 
 
 8,427,784 
 
 16,739,529 
 
 3,591,121 
 
 1,733,280 
 
 191,792 
 
 2,461,185 
 Totl 
 
 270,082 
 1. - 
 
 268,909 
 1,573,224 
 
 85,446 
 177,625 
 
 333,786 
 2,080,942 
 
 41,797 
 194,614 
 
 
 1,842,138 
 
 212,971 
 
 2,414,728 
 
 236,311 
 
 s Above 2 years old used, or intended to be used, for serrioe. 
 
468 
 
 APP. X.-AGRICULTURAL WAGES 
 
 n 
 
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 North-Eastem. 
 Bedford, - 
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 Essex, - 
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 Huntingdon, - 
 Lincoln, - 
 Norfolk, - 
 Suffolk, - 
 East Biding, - 
 
 ■^ 
 
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 APP. X.— AGRICDLT 
 
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INDEX. !i.e.>k.t^f>'-iir() «*«v-i. 
 
 Abbs Court, Lord Halifax at, 172. 
 
 Aherdeen-Angua Polled Herd-Book, 
 The, 373. 
 
 Abraham man, the, 76. 
 
 Acoms, bread made from, 84. 
 
 Acom fever, the, 386. 
 
 Acreage of England and Wales, 146 ; 
 in 1688, 465, 464, 466; mien- 
 closed, in 1696, 162 ; in eighteenth 
 centmry, 154. 
 
 Acts of Parliament affecting the Com 
 Trade, 1360-1869, 442 se?. 
 
 Actus, the Boman, 279. 
 
 Addington, Stephen, his Inquiry into 
 the Reasons for and against im^sing 
 Open Fields, 303. 
 
 Adulteration of food-stuSs, 379, 381. 
 
 " Advontage-breaul," 449. 
 
 AfFers, 12. 
 
 Agistment, on commons, 27, 158. 
 
 Agriculture, under Elizabeth, 91 seq. ; 
 under James I., 104 ; advance of, 
 in eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
 turies, 148 ; fashionable, under 
 George II., 173 ; and George III., 
 207; in 1837. 346; (1837-1846), 
 370; (1860-1851), 370; (1853- 
 1862), 370; (1853-1874), 372; 
 (1874-1886), 374 869., 382; (1883- 
 1890), 380 ; (1891-1899), 374, 380 ; 
 in 1901, 382 ; in 1888 and 1912, 
 393 seq. ; in 1837 and 1912, 346, 
 363, 364, 355 ; advance but small 
 since " the fifties," 346 ; " apron 
 string " farmers, 348 ; branches 
 of, in modem times, 383 ; com- 
 mercial basis, organisation of, on 
 a, 48, 205, 290, 407, 413, 414; 
 Department of Agriculture, a, 379 ; 
 drainage in modem times, 362- 
 366 ; extravagance blamed for 
 distress, 347 : not altogether justly, 
 348 ; essentially different from 
 manufctcture, 383 ; economic, etc., 
 problems not to be solved in the 
 same way as urban, 417 ; founda- 
 tion and administration of the 
 Boyal Agricultural Society, q.v. ; 
 
 low level of agriculture in 1837, 
 356 ; notable improvements in 
 1837-74, 361 ; manures, 364-368 ; 
 education, q.v. ; depression of 
 agricultural industry, from 1814, 
 322 seq. : reorganisation of, 326. 
 
 AgTi<mlture, The Annals of, and 
 Robert Bakewell, 186 ; started by 
 Arthur Young, 196 ; George III. 
 a contributor to, 196, 207 ; on 
 enclosure, 307. 
 
 Agriculture, Board of, established by 
 Pitt in 1793, 196, 209; Beports 
 to, 225 seq. (and see Beports) ; 
 Beport of 1795, on uncultivated 
 lands, 152 ; Sir Humphry Davy's 
 lectures in 1803, 216, 369; and 
 the Enclosure Bill of 1800, 261 ; 
 on open-fields, 157 ; on voluntary 
 enclosure, 162 ; Communieations 
 to the Board of AgricuUv/re, 314 ; 
 dissolved in 1822, 359 ; recom- 
 mended potatoes, 136 ; (at the 
 present day) article in Nineteenth 
 Century for April, 1889, 400; 
 responsibilities transferred from 
 private owners to the State, 400. 
 
 Agriculture, Chambers of. Central 
 and Associated Chambers foxmded 
 in 1866, 405. 
 
 Agricultural Committee, of 1833, 
 326 ; of 1836, 325, 326. 
 
 Agricidtural Commission of 1879 
 (Duke of Bichmond's), 377, 378, 
 380, 410. 
 
 Agricultural Customs, Select Com- 
 mittee on, of 1848, 370. 
 
 Agricuitural Gazette, The, 361. 
 
 Agricultural Holdings Act, of 1875, 
 379, 405 ; of 1908, 406. 
 
 Agricultural Labourers' Union, the, 
 410 ; initial success of, 410 ; defeat 
 of, in 1874, 411 ; and the Federal 
 Union, 411. 
 
 Agricultural Population, Census Re- 
 turns for 1851, 1861 and 1871, 460 ; 
 for 1881, 1891 and 1901, 461. 
 
 Agricultural Bates Act of 1896, 382. 
 
472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agricultural Rntums, the (1866), 361. 
 
 Agricultural Societies. See Societies. 
 
 The Agricultural State of the Kingdom 
 in Webruary, March, and April, 
 1816 . . . being the Substance of 
 the Replies to a Circular Letter sent 
 by the Board of Agriculture, etc., 320. 
 
 Agricultural Statistics, 460 seq. 
 
 Aire, the, 117, 277. 
 
 Alcester, the needle industry at, 310. 
 
 Aldsworth, 232. 
 
 Ale, Assize of, 448. 
 
 Alice Holt Woods, the, 391. 
 
 Allen, William, his Landlord's Com- 
 panion, 262. 
 
 Allotments, a benefit to the labourer, 
 409, 416 ; as compensation for 
 common-rights, often sold before 
 awarded, 408 ; The Labourers' 
 Union and, 410 ; and parish- 
 farms, 408. 
 
 Allowances, Parish, 327, 436. 
 
 Althorp, Lord, 208 ; on tithes, 346. 
 
 America, com from, after 1816, 271, 
 273 ; the Civil War in, 371 ; in- 
 crease of trade with, after 1816, 
 317 ; industrial collapse in 1873-4, 
 376 ; influx of wheat from, in 1879, 
 376 ; innovations from, 366 ; our 
 war with, 268. 
 
 Amherst, Hon. Alicia. See Mrs. 
 Evelyn Cecil. 
 
 Ammonia, sulphate of, 366. 
 
 Andover, Edgar's ordinance at, 336. 
 
 Angliee NoUtia, 86. 
 
 Anthrax, 386. 
 
 Apathy of landowners at the present 
 day, 399-401. 
 
 Appleby Stringbinder, the, 387. 
 
 Apples, 136. 
 
 Apprentices, Statute of (1663), 87, 
 88. 
 
 Appropriators, ecclesiastical, 339, 
 340. 
 
 " Apron-string " farmers, 348. 
 
 Arab horses, 183. 
 
 Arable land, converted to pasture, 
 42. 58, 59, 66, 72, 99; at Wel- 
 combe, 68 ; sheep on, 96 ; under 
 the Tndors, 121 ; in 1700, 154. 
 
 Arbuthnot, John, his Inquiry into 
 the connection between the present 
 price of provisions and the Size of 
 Farms, 303. 
 
 Arch, Joseph, 410 ; his evidence 
 before the Agricultural Commission 
 in 1881, 410. 
 
 Argentina, meat from, 378. 
 
 Arkwright, Richard, 181, 206. 
 
 Armstrong College, 390. 
 
 Artichokes, Jerusalem, 135. 
 
 Artisan, the, his lot compared with 
 that of the labourer, 414, 416. 
 
 Ashes, as manure, 110. 
 
 Aspatria College, 390. 
 
 Assart lands, 38, 56, 71, 72. 
 
 Assize of Bread, 256, 448 seq. ; in 
 1497, 448; in 1710, 448, 449; in 
 1758, 449; in 1794-1812, 460; 
 in 1795, 461; in 1812, 460; in 
 1813, 461 ; in 1822, 461 ; in 1836, 
 451 ; discontinued in 1822, 256, 
 451 ; abolished finally in 1836, 451. 
 
 Assized loaves, 460. 
 
 Aston Boges, 6, 24. 
 
 Atkins, Mr., of Clerkenwell, dealer 
 in refuse, 191. 
 
 Attleborough, 240. 
 
 Atwell, George, his Faithful Sur- 
 veyor, 428. 
 
 Atwood, G., his Seview of the Statutes 
 and ordinances of Assize, 1202-1797, 
 448. 
 
 Augustine, tithes at the time of bis 
 landing in England, 333. 
 
 Austin, Ralph, his Treatise of Fruit 
 Trees, 427. 
 
 Avers, 12. 
 
 Avon, the, 276, 277. 
 
 Awdeley, John, The Fratemitye of 
 Vacabondes, 76. 
 
 Awre, Lord Berkeley at, 32. 
 
 Axholme, Isle of, 114, 119, 247, 304. 
 
 Aylesbury, Vale of, 198 ; farming 
 in 1770, 198. 
 
 Ayrshire Herd-book Society, the, 373. 
 
 Babraham, Sir H. Palavicino of, 114 ; 
 Jonas Webb of, 364. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, on enclosures, 60 ; 
 on yeomen, 296 ; his love of 
 gardening, 101. 
 
 Badgers, 264. 
 
 Bagshot mutton, 178. 
 
 Bailey, J., and Culley G., their Cum- 
 berland, 48, 226 ; their Northum- 
 berland, 177, 222, 226. 
 
 Baize trade, at Coggeshall, 308, 
 309. 
 
 Bakers' allowances under the Assize 
 of Bread, 448. 
 
 BakeweU, Robert, 139, 149, 176, 177, 
 181, 364; account of him, 184; 
 his bankruptcy, 186 ; his canals 
 and irrigation, 184 ; his household, 
 185 ; his reticence and jealousy, 
 184 ; ploughs with cows, 184 ; 
 lets his rams, etc., 184, 186 ; gives 
 sheep the rot, 184 ; his experiments 
 with horses, 183, 366 ; with cattle, 
 187 ; with sheep, 186. 
 
 Baldon, cottagers at, 306. 
 
INDEX 
 
 473 
 
 Balgrave, Joseph, his Epitome of 
 HtuXxmdry, 428. 
 
 Balks, 23, 24, 165, 166. 
 
 BEkUads, against enclosure, 62, 67. 
 
 Balmoral, royal teara at, 360. 
 
 Baltic, the. Government buys com 
 in, 266 ; anticipated closing of, in 
 1800, 270; closed by Crimean 
 War, 371. 
 
 Bamptons (sheep), 178. 
 
 Banbury, a canal port, 277 ; cheeses, 
 136 ; industries at, 310 ; markefr- 
 at, 222. 
 
 Bangor, tiunpikes on road to Shrews- 
 bury, 284. 
 
 Banks, panics, 211 seq., 374, 376 ; 
 Bonk of England, restricts its note 
 issue, 211; suspends payment, 212; 
 the Bank Restriction Act, 212. 
 
 Bannockbum, Battle of, 160. 
 
 Banstead mutton, 178. 
 
 Barber's Furlong, 26. 
 
 Barley, the drink-corn of the Middle 
 Ages, 9. 
 
 Barnard Castle, tram at, 361. 
 
 Barnes, William (the Dorset poet), on 
 commons, 305. 
 
 Barren Lands Act, the, 343. 
 
 Barrier Treaty, the, 173. 
 
 Barton-upon-Humber, 153. 
 
 Barton, John, his Observations . . . 
 on the condition of the Labouring 
 Classes, 320 ; his Inquiry into the 
 Caitses of the Progressive Depreda- 
 tion of Agricultural Labour, 320. 
 
 Basic slag, 366, 384. 
 
 Basildon, Jethro Tull bom at, 170. 
 
 Bastard, Thomas, 62 ; his Chresto- 
 leros, 63. 
 
 Batchelor, Thomas, his Bedfordshire, 
 242. 
 
 Bates, Thomas, his Shorthorns, 354. 
 
 Bawtry, a port, 276. 
 
 Beaconsfield, Burke at, 208. 
 
 Beale, John, his Herefordshire Or- 
 chards, 427. And see Anthony 
 Laiifrence. 
 
 Beaminster, industries at, 312. 
 
 Beans, as food for slaves, 199. 
 
 Beccles, hemp at, 136, 193, 309. 
 
 Becon, Thomas, his Jewel of Joy, 62, 
 123. 
 
 Bederepes, or Bedrips, 11. 
 
 Bedford, Francis, 4th Earl of, 117 ; 
 William, 6th Earl of, 1 17 ; Francis, 
 6th Duke of, 207, 208 : his sheep- 
 shearings, 221 ; 11th Duke of, his 
 Maulden scheme, 416, 416. 
 
 Bedford Level, the, 117 seq. 
 
 Bedfordshire, Report on (Stone), 
 241 ; (Batchelor), 242, 248. 
 
 Bees, 18 ; in Stewart times, 106. 
 Beetle, a Dover-court, 10 ; a clotting, 
 
 10. 
 Belgium, receipts per cultivated acre 
 
 five times as large as Great Britain, 
 
 401. 
 Bell, Rev. Patrick, his reaping- 
 
 nutchine, 368. 
 Bellers, John, his Proposal for Rais- 
 ing a College of Industry, etc., 
 
 430: 
 BeUot, James, his Booke of Thrifte, 
 
 419, 422; (of Caen), his Jardin, 
 
 de Vertu, 419. 
 Bells on teams, 205. 
 Belvoir, Vale of, the best corn-land 
 
 in Europe, 136, 168. 
 Benese, Richard, his Boke shewing 
 
 the maner of lande, etc., 420. 
 Berkeley, Lady Joan, 32, 33. 
 Berkeley, Estates, the, 10, 17, 18, 
 
 31 seq., 45 seq. 
 Berkeleys, the, 31, 32, 44, 45. 
 Berkshire, Report on (Pearce), 234 ; 
 
 (Mavor), 293 ; industries of, 309 ; 
 
 parish allowances in, 327, 436. 
 Berlin decree, the, 270. 
 Berthelet, lliomas, his edition of 
 
 Pitzherbert, 90. 
 Best, Henry, 8 ; his Farming Book, 
 
 84, 88, 91, 93, 106, 425. 
 Beverley, road from Hull to, 153. 
 Beverley reaper, the, 358, 369. 
 Beverston, Lord Berkeley's sheep at, 
 
 46. 
 " Billanders," 276. 
 Billingsley, John, his Somersetshire, 
 
 232, 294. 
 Binders, 387. 
 Bingham, out-door relief refused at, 
 
 330. 
 Birmingham, yeomen seek employ- 
 ment in, 296 ; industries at, 310. 
 Bishop, the, his right to appoint to 
 
 benefices, 338. 
 Bishton, J., his Shropshire, 228. 
 Black Death, the, iO seq., 44, 62, 
 
 66, 75. 
 Black Horse, the (and see Horses 
 
 and Bakewell), L83, 184. 
 Blctck Mountains, the, in Hereford- 
 shire, 228. 
 "Black Prince of the North, the" 
 
 (John Grey of Dilston), 318. 
 Blackstone, Sir W., on yeomen, 296. 
 Blakeney, export of com from, in 
 
 eighteenth century, 194. 
 Blandford, industries at, 312. 
 " Blind Jack of Knaresborough," 
 
 284. 
 Blindness, in oats, 386. 
 
474 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Blith, Walter, his story, 113; his 
 English Improver improved, 91, 
 110. 113, 123, 426; on drainage, 
 112, 114, 118, 119, 120 ; on tenant- 
 right, etc., 113; advocates en- 
 closure, 113, 123, 166, 166; his 
 water level, 114; on extravagance 
 of farmers, 347. 
 
 Blome, Bichaid, his OenUeTnan'a 
 Recreation, 430. 
 
 Blood, nuinurial value of, 110, 367. 
 
 Bloonifield, Bobert, his Farmer'a Boy, 
 193. 
 
 Blosham, industries at, 310. 
 
 Blundeville, Thomas, his Fower 
 chiefyst offices belonging to Horae- 
 manahippe, 105 ; his translation of 
 Grisone's Arte of Byding, 421. 
 
 Blunt, Col., of Gravesend, ploughs 
 with one horse, 109. 
 
 Board of Agriculture. See Agri- 
 culture. 
 
 Board of Trade. See Trade. 
 
 " Board " land. See Bord-land. 
 
 "Bobbin" (Martha Ann Young), 
 197. 
 
 Booking, industries at, 309. 
 
 Bohemia, cattle plague originated 
 in, 149. 
 
 Bolingbroke, at Dawley, 173. 
 
 Bolymong, 11, 93. 
 
 Bondmen, 20, 21, 40, 47, 52 ; at 
 Castle Combe, 43. 
 
 Bones, imports of, in 1827 and 1837, 
 366; as manure, 366; Sheffield 
 Bone-dust, 194, 218. 
 
 Boon-days, 48. 
 
 Booth, Thomas and John, their 
 Shorthorns, 354. 
 
 Bordars, 20, 22. 
 
 Borde, Andrew, his Dyetary, 84, 100. 
 
 Bordeaux mixture, 386. 
 
 Bord-land, the, 6. 
 
 Borlase, William (Cornish antiquary), 
 on the extravagance of labourers, 
 347. 
 
 Boston, 276. 
 
 Bosworth, Battle of, 67, 66. 
 
 Bounties. See Com Laws. 
 
 Bovates, 22. 
 
 Bow, Sir J. B. Lawes' works at, 367. 
 
 Boys, John, his Kent, 293. 
 
 Bradfield, home of Arthur Young, 
 195. 
 
 Bradley, Lord Berkeley at, 32. 
 
 Bradley, Prof. Bichard, on English 
 horses, 183 ; on drains, 192 ; . and 
 WorUdge's machine, 171 ; his 
 Complete Body of Htiabandry, 134, 
 192 ; his Oentleman and Farmer'a 
 Guide, 168, 183 ; his Siiniey of 
 
 Ancient Husbandry, 419 ; edits 
 Houghton's CoUection, 430. 
 
 Brandersham, 26. 
 
 Brandon, the, 116. 
 
 Bread, Assize of, 266, 448 seq. 
 under Elizabeth, 84 ; pure, 132 
 " bread treet," 449 ; wasteU, 449 
 white, 461 ; wheaten, standard 
 wheaten, and household, 460. 
 
 Bredon, 229. 
 
 Brent marsh, 232, 294. 
 
 Bridges, legislation in Tudor times, 
 281 ; magistrates and, 281. 
 
 Bridgnorth, 228, 276. 
 
 Bridgwater, Duke of, his canal, 278. 
 
 Bridlington Quay, 153. 
 
 Bridport, industries at, 312. 
 
 Brigg, 153. 
 
 Brillat-Savarin, 107. 
 
 Brindley, James, 278. 
 
 Brinklow, Henry, 62. 
 
 Bristol, 276 ; Fruit and Cider In- 
 stitute at, 390. 
 
 Broad ox-gang, 21. 
 
 Bromwich, neol industry at, 310. 
 
 Broseley, garden-pot industry at, 
 310. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, his Speech on Agri- 
 cultural Diatreaa (9 April, 1816), 
 320. 
 
 Brouncker's ploughs, 104. 
 
 Brown, Bobert (farmer at Markle), 
 his West Biding of Torkahdre, 226, 
 261, 295. 
 
 Brown, Bobert (of Inverness), his 
 Lettera on the Diatreaaed State of 
 AgricuUuriata, 319. 
 
 Brown, Thomas, his Derbyahire, 294. 
 
 Buckingham, Duke of, his steward, 
 151. 
 
 Buckinghamshire, Beport on (James 
 and Malcolm), 234 : industries in, 
 309. 
 
 Buckwheat, ploughing in, 96. 
 
 Bullock's Hill, St. Faith's fair, 218. 
 
 Burghley, Lord, fond of gardening, 
 101. 
 
 Burial grounds, 335 ; and tithes, 336, 
 337. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, his experiments in 
 carrots at Beaconsfield, 208. 
 
 Burning land, 107. 
 
 Burrell, Andrewes, his Brief e Relation, 
 etc., 116, 426; his discovery in 
 Wisbeach river, 116 ; his attacks 
 on Vermuyden, 117; his patent 
 draining machine, 104. 
 
 Burslem wares, 276. 
 
 Burwell Fen, 245. 
 
 Bury St. Edmunds, manure from, 
 192. 
 
INDEX 
 
 475 
 
 Butler, Charles, his Feminine 
 
 Monarchie, 106. 424. 
 Butler, Mis. Josephine E., her 
 
 Memoirs of John Orey of DiltUm, 
 
 318. 
 Butter, 389, 390 ; spurious, 379. 
 " Butts," 24. 
 Byerly Turk, 183. 
 Byngbam, Captain, 99. 
 
 C, H., The Drayning of Fennes, 115, 
 
 426. 
 Coird, Sir James, 361, 382; his 
 letters to the Times, 370 ; his 
 English AgricuUure in 1850-1, 370, 
 470 ; his High Farming, etc., 371 ; 
 his evidence in 1886, 378. 
 Ccustor, 153. 
 Calcot, 5. 
 Calder, the, 277. 
 Caledonian Bank, feulure of the, 
 
 375. 
 Calendar, the Julian, 9. 
 Calthorpe, Charles, bis Relation be- 
 tween the Lord of a Manor and a 
 Copyholder, his Tenant, 425. 
 Calves, travelling, 204. 
 Cam, the, 116. 
 
 Cambridge, the " Lincolnshire Ox " 
 at, 181 ; a port, 276 ; experiments 
 at, 387. 
 Caoiibridgeshire, Report on (Van- 
 couver), 242, 244, 247; (Gooch), 
 243 ; its bad reputation, 241, 243 ; 
 industries of, 309 ; petition from, 
 in 1816, 320. 
 Camomile, 312. 
 Canada, com from, 274. 
 Canals, 114, 211, 216 seq. ; the first 
 true canal, 278 ; CanEil Acts in 
 eighteenth century, 278 ; in nine- 
 teenth century, 350 ; Mersey and 
 Trent, 278 ; Thames and Avon, 
 277 ; ancillary rail-ways, 351, 
 352 ; and railways in 1830, 353. 
 Canal du Midi, the, 114. 
 Canary seed, 136, 312. 
 Candlemass, 26, 34. 
 Canley, Webster of, 187. 
 Canterbury, silk industry at, 309. 
 Canute, and tithes, 337. 
 Capital, under Elizabeth, 78 : at the 
 
 present day, 401. 
 Capitalist farmers, 215, 221, 222, 290, 
 
 349, 372. 
 Caraways, 136 ; in Essex, 193, 312. 
 Carew, Richard, his Cornwall, 164. 
 Carle hemp, 30. 
 Carlisle, parish allowances stopped 
 
 at, 330. 
 Caroline, Queen, 173. 
 
 Carrots, 102; in Suffolk, 193; at 
 
 BeacoDsfield, 208. 
 Cans, 25. 
 Carrs, the, 153. 
 Carruthers, on pastures, 384. 
 Carucate, 21. 
 Casting-shovel, the, 93. 
 Castle Combe, 43. 
 Cathcart, Lord, 173. 
 Catherine, Queen, gets salad from 
 
 Flanders, 102. 
 Cato, the Censor, 33, 419. 
 Catthorp Common, enclosure at, 126. 
 Cattle (and see Stock), 13, 14, 96, 96, 
 137, 138 ; of commoners, 159 ; 
 importation prohibited from Ire- 
 land, 143 ; nimibers of, in 1866 
 and 1874, 373 ; pedigree cattle, 
 372 ; points of, 185 ; varieties of, 
 179, 373; The Cattle Diseases 
 Prevention Act of 1866, 372 ; The 
 Contagious Diseases of Animals 
 Act of 1896, 381. 
 Cattle Plague, the, of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 149 ; of nineteenth century, 
 372. 
 Caughley, industries at, 310. 
 " Causey," the Roman, 116. 
 Cavendish, William, Marquis and 
 Duke of Newcastle, his books, 183, 
 427. 
 Caxton, tollbar at, 282. 
 Cecil, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn, her Mayster 
 
 Ion Gardener, 102, 419. 
 Census, the first official, in 1801, 
 
 266 ; in 1811, 266. 
 Centrifuge principle, the, 389. 
 Certayrie Causes gathered together 
 
 (enclosures), 66. 
 St. Chad, 9. 
 Chalk, 96, 100, 109 ; in Essex, 192 ; 
 
 as manure, 366. 
 Chalmers, George, his Estimate of the 
 Comparative Strength of Oreat 
 Britain, 145. 
 Chamberlayne, Edward, his Angliae 
 
 Notitia, 86. 
 " Champion " land, 66, 72, 97, 123, 
 
 156 ; in Suffolk, 192. 
 Charcoal industry, the, in Surrey, 309. 
 Charles I., and the Bedford Level, 
 117 ; his income for 1637-41, 141 ; 
 feudal dues under, 141 ; New- 
 market races, 183 ; and the Com 
 Laws, 258. 
 Charles II., income provided for, 
 142 ; his Royal Mares, 183 ; high- 
 way rates under, 282 ; his Bee- 
 master, Rusden, 430. 
 Charlock 386. 
 Chat Moss, 364. 
 
476 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chatteris, 24S. 
 
 Chaucer, 21, 25, 49. 
 
 Cheese, 14, 390 ; in seventeenth 
 century, 109 ; Bamaby Googe on, 
 109 ; Parmesan, Dutch, French, 
 and EngUsh, 109 ; Banbury, Che- 
 shire and Cheddar, 136 ; Stilton, 
 187; of Sufiolk, 193 ; at Windsor 
 farm, 360 ; American, 376 ; Brie, 
 Camembert, Gervais, 390. 
 
 Chemistry, agriculture and, 385, 386. 
 
 Cherries, 136. 
 
 Cherwell, the, 277. 
 
 Cheshire, Beport on (Wedge), 227 ; 
 (Holland), 295; yeomen in 1621, 
 83 ; Agricultural Institute, 390. 
 
 Chester, port of, 276. 
 
 Cheshunt Common, 238 ; grazed by 
 stock-jobbers, 159. 
 
 ChevaUier, Dr. John, 3S4. 
 
 Child, Bobert (1651), author of the 
 Large Letter, 109, 426 ; on bees, 
 106; 112, 115, 119 (on reclama- 
 tion), 120 ; on cattle, 180 ; on 
 gardening, 102 ; his Eight Ques- 
 tions as to Enclosure, 124, 126. 
 
 Childersley, enclosure at, 242, 243. 
 
 Chiver, Patent for improved Coiuses 
 of Husbandry, 104. 
 
 Cholesbury (Bucks), state of the 
 parish, 330. 
 
 Le Choyselat, Prudent, his Discours 
 Oeconomique . . . , 422. 
 
 Church, the, disendowment of, in 
 England, 402; in Wales, 402, 
 403 ; and present day poHtics, 402. 
 
 Churchey, George, 424. 
 
 Churton, R., his Olde Thrift Newly 
 Revived, etc., 424. 
 
 Cibber, Colley, The Provoked Hus- 
 band, 283. 
 
 Cider, 18; from turnips, 111; The 
 National Fruit and Cider Institute, 
 390. 
 
 Cirencester, 80; industries at, 311; 
 Agricultural College founded in 
 I84S, 361. 
 
 Civil wars, the, agricultural progress 
 checked by, 104 ; drainage in the 
 fens checked by, 117, 119. 
 
 Claridge, John, his Dorsetshire, 233. 
 
 Clark, John, his Herefordshire, 228, 
 301. 
 
 Clarke, Sir Ernest, on Fitzherbert, 90. 
 
 Clarkson, William, his Inqvdry into 
 Pav/periam and the Poor Rates, 314, 
 320. 
 
 Clay, as manure, 366. 
 
 Clay lands, difficulties of, 324, 326, 
 326, 371 ; of Essex, 379 ; in 1837, 
 348, 362 ; and manure, 365. 
 
 Cleveland Bays, 366. 
 
 Cloth, English, under Elizabeth, 79, 
 81 ; foreign wool and, 189 ; West 
 Country, in eighteenth century, 
 178. 
 
 Clotting beetle, 10. 
 
 Clover, 104 ; field cultivation of, and 
 SirR. Weston, 107; 108, 110; not 
 possible on open-fields, 122 ; im- 
 portance of, 176 ; reluctance to 
 grow it, 134, 202 ; in Essex, 202 ; 
 in Hertfordshire, 191 ; in Suffolk, 
 193. 
 
 Clun Forest, mutton from, 178, 228. 
 
 Clydesdales, 365. 
 
 Coaches, family-coaches, 283 ; mail- 
 coaches, 284 ; railway-coaches, 363 ; 
 stage-coaches, 282 ; steel springs 
 on carriages, 283. 
 
 Coalport, industries at, 310. 
 
 Coats, George, of Carlton, his OeneraJ, 
 Short-homed Herd Book, 364. 
 
 Cobbett, William, editor of Jethro 
 Tull, 169 ; on Thomas Coke, 220. 
 
 Cobham (Kent), sainfoin at, 136. 
 
 Cobham (Surrey), iron mills at, 309. 
 
 Cockers, 12. 
 
 Codware, 94. 
 
 Cogan, Thomas, his Haven of HeUhe, 
 79. 
 
 Coggeshall, poor rates at, 308 ; 
 baize trade at, 308, 309. 
 
 Coinage, and Currency, changes in, 
 73 ; restored under Elizabeth, 78, 
 81 ; at end of eighteenth century, 
 211, 261, 317. 
 
 Coke, Sir Edward, Lord Chief Justice, 
 and enclosures at Stratford-on- 
 Avon, 68; his Compleate Copyholder, 
 426. 
 
 Coke, Thomas (of Norfolk), 32, 149, 
 194, 207 ; account of, 217 aeq. ; his 
 live-stock, 219, 364 ; sends a 
 Norfolk plough to Gloucestershire, 
 203. 
 
 Colchester, 33. 
 
 Coldstream, Mr. Pringle introduces 
 drilling at, 176. 
 
 Cole, John, clothier of Reading, 80. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., attends Davy's 
 lectures, 217. 
 
 Cole-seed, 108, 136. 
 
 Colewort, 160. 
 
 " College," the, at Welcombe, 68. 
 
 College of Experiments, suggested by 
 Gabriel Plattes, 110, and by Robert 
 Child, 110. 
 
 ColUng, Charles, his Ketton herd, 187 ; 
 Charles and Robert, their Short- 
 horns, 364. 
 
 Colonial preference, 273. 
 
INDEX 
 
 477 
 
 Colucia, F., editor of Palladius, 419. 
 
 ColumeUa, 33, 99, 419. 
 
 Combe, William, of Stratford-on- 
 
 Avon, 68. 
 Comber, W. T., his Inquiry into the 
 State of National Subsistence, 266, 
 456. 
 Comenius, Hartlib's traiiBlation from, 
 
 108. 
 Commerce, rise of, 67 seq. ; under 
 
 Elizabeth, 79. 
 Commination Service, curse in the, 
 
 167. 
 CommisBJ oners of Sewers, the (1630), 
 
 117. 
 Commons, and Common-rights, 22, 
 27, 36, 37 ; commutation of, 67 ; 
 and enclosures, 71, 304, 305, 306 ; 
 compared with Fenlands, 118, 119 
 seq. ; and the Digger movement, 
 121 ; squatters, 126 seq., 162, 157, 
 168, 169 ; preserved as breathing- 
 spaces, 262 ; at Maulden, 416. 
 Common petstures, 6, 26 seq., 36, 37, 
 72, 120, 167, 159 ; Timothy Nouise 
 on, 160 ; open-fields and, 224 seq. 
 Commonwealth, distribution of land 
 
 under the, 140. 
 Company of Adventurers, the (Bed- 
 ford Level), 117. 
 Compendious or Brief Examination, 
 etc., by W. S., 70, 71, 73, 97, 122, 
 164. 
 Compensation for continuous good 
 farming in excess of standard, 406, 
 " Compostynge," 60. 
 Compulsory, commutation of tithes. 
 344 ; labour on roads, 282 ; legis- 
 lation, advocated by Robert Child 
 ( 1665), 109 ; by Walter BUth, 114 ; 
 tenant right, 406. 
 Confiscation of land, 396. 
 Coningsby, 246. 
 
 Consecration, secures tithes, 387. 
 Consols, present low price of, facili- 
 tates tithe-redemption, 403. 
 ConstaUe's field, 26. 
 Contagious Diseases of Animals Act, 
 
 the, of 1896, 381. 
 Contract, freedom of, 54, 67 ; ex 
 
 adverso tenant-right, 405. 
 Conygarth, the, 18. 
 Coode, G., his Report in 1861, 434. 
 Cook, Moses, his Forrest-Trees, 429. 
 Co-operative societies, 417. 
 Copper, for destroying charlock, 386. 
 Copyholders, 23, 69 ; of inheritance, 
 
 70; under Elizabeth, 84. 
 Coriander, in Essex, 193. 
 Com, boimties on exports, see Corn- 
 Laws (1697-1765), 452; consump- 
 
 tion of, per person, 266, 267 ; con- 
 sumption of home-grown as com- 
 pared with population,272; England 
 profits by reason of, 262 ; export 
 duty in Prussia, 270 ; exports of, 
 in 1792, 268; in 1808, 268; 
 imports and exports (1697-1801), 
 452; (1765-1814), 267; imports 
 in 1741, 1767 and 1768, 261 ; 
 in 1715-1765, 263; in 1782, 267: 
 in 1796, 267 ; in 1876-6, 376 ; im- 
 portation of. Porter on, 214 ; 
 importation from France during 
 Napoleonic war, 269 ; French 
 demand for, in 1870-1, 371 ; House 
 of Commons Committee on the 
 Com Trade (1814), 319 ; seed com, 
 10, 94, 107; steeping, 107, 120; 
 Jethro Tull on, 170 ; self-denying 
 ordinances, 254 ; speculation in, 
 256, 273 ; wheat area in 1864, 371 ; 
 in 1871 and 1901, 378 ; wholesale 
 trade in, 312 ; yield per acre, 97, 
 98, 101, 107, 131 ; lliomas Coke, 
 319 ; in Cambridgeshire, 242 ; in 
 Gloucestershire (1790), 199; (1796), 
 232 ; in 1860 as compared with 
 1770, 371 ; in 1879, 376 ; prices of 
 (1463-1497), 448; in eighteenth 
 century, 148, 168, 210, 262; in 
 seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, 264; (1646-1911), 440, 441 ; 
 (1715-1765), 259 ; (1742-1766), 263; 
 (1765-1764), 435 ; (1766-1774), 436 ; 
 (1765-1813), 264, 265 (the weather 
 and the war) ; (1782-1792), 321 ; 
 in 1800, 270; (1801-1810), 266; 
 (1802-1812), 321 ; (1811-1820), 266; 
 in 1812, 270; (1813-1815), 319; 
 in 1835, 274 ; in 1860, 371 ; efiect 
 of peace of 1815 on, 271 ; sensitive 
 to harvests and weather, 254, 261. 
 Com Laws, the (and see Appendix 
 m.), 210, 263 seq., 442 seq. ; seven- 
 teenth century, 143; (1689-1765), 
 260869.; (1765-1815),2638e9.; (1815- 
 1846), ^65 seq.; (1846-1849), 274; 
 Acts of Parliament, affecting the 
 com trade, 442-447 ; aim of legis- 
 lation, 266, 256 ; Anti-Corn Law 
 Lecigue, the, 274 ; boimties, 267, 
 259, 260, 261 ; on exports (1697- 
 1765), 443, 444, 462 ; on imports, 
 265 ; suspended, 261, 264 ; cease 
 to be based on moral principles, 
 271 ; Colonial preference, 273 ; 
 commercial blockade during French 
 and American wars, 268, 269 ; 
 England remained dependent on 
 her own produce, 349 ; export 
 allowed by statute, 257 ; restriction 
 
478 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on, 257, 442 seq. ; exports and im- 
 ports, 268, 261, 263, 268, 442 seq. ; 
 imports, restrictions on, 273, 444 ; 
 after 1814, 265, 273; during the 
 French war, 268 ; foreign com 
 admitted duty free in the eight- 
 eenth century, 261, 263 ; increas- 
 ing preponderance over exports, 
 264, 267, 268; Indian com and 
 meal, 446 ; inland trade, restrictions 
 on, 266 ; regulated as well as 
 foreign trade, 266 ; merchants 
 petition against, in 1820, 273 ; 
 middlemen, forestallers, etc., 266 ; 
 monopoly of home markets, not 
 the effect of the Com Laws, 321 ; 
 prices steadied by the Com Laws, 
 264, 267 ; down to 1816 only, 271 ; 
 otherwise not much afiected, 270 ; 
 Protection, frankly so, after 1816, 
 271; "rained away," 274, 371; 
 repeal, advocated by Porter, 273 ; 
 in 1846, 409 ; final repeal in 1869, 
 274, 371 ; revenue and, 257, 258 ; 
 royal licenses, 267 ; under the 
 Tudor8,257; the Stewarts, 268 ; at 
 the Restoration, 258 ; rye, 445 ; 
 sliding scale of duties in 1828 and 
 onward, 273. 
 
 Cornwall, report on (Worgan), 311 ; 
 industries in, 311. 
 
 Correction, houses of, 432, 434, 436. 
 
 Corse Lawn, 230, 231, 232. 
 
 Cotereau, CJiarles, translator of Col- 
 umella, 419. 
 
 Cotesbach, Bev. Joseph Lee at, 125. 
 
 Cottages, to have each 4 acres of land, 
 297 ; " Cottage Acres," 298. 
 
 Cottagers and enclosures, 305. 
 
 Cottars, 22. 
 
 Cottenhtun, common rights at, 27. 
 
 Cotton, Charles, his Planter's MantuU, 
 429. 
 
 Cotswold wool, 80, 98, 138, 178, 311. 
 
 Couling, Mr. W., his evidence before 
 the Select Committee on Emigra- 
 tion, 1827, 466. 
 
 " Counterfet Cranke," the, 76. 
 
 " Country Farmer, A," Cwraory Se- 
 marka on BntHoswrea, etc., 303. 
 
 " Country Gentleman, A," The Ad- 
 vantages and DisadvaiUages of En- 
 dosing Waste Lands, 301, 303. 
 
 Courts, Manorial, 19, 150 ; dwindling 
 jurisdiction of, 64 ; Court Bolls, 23, 
 24, 39, 47, 70. 
 
 Le Couteur, CoL, 364. 
 
 Coventry, a port, 276 ; yeomen seek 
 employment at, 296 ; ribbon and 
 tamine trade at, 310. 
 
 Cow-commons, 248. 
 
 Cow-leech, the, 386. 
 
 Cowper, J. M., his England in the reign 
 
 of Henry VIII., 59. 
 Cowper, John, his Essay proving that 
 Inclosing . . . is contrary to the 
 interest of the Nation, 151. 
 " Crag " (Suffolk), 192. 
 Craven Longhoms, 187. 
 Crawshay, John, his Covntryman'a 
 
 Instructor, 106, 425. 
 Crayford, linen industry at, 309. 
 Credit banks, 417. 
 Crediton, pastures at, 136. 
 Crescentius, Petrus, 89, 420. 
 Cricklade, 234. 
 Crimean war, the, closes the Baltic, 
 
 371 ; depression preceding, 409. 
 Crofters in Skye, in 1760, 28. 
 Crombie, Bev. Dr., his Letters on the 
 Present State of the AgricuUwral 
 Interest, 320. 
 Crompton, Samuel, 206. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, and racehorses, 
 183 ; and Hertfordshire turnips, 
 191. 
 Crones, 14. 
 " Crooks," 204. 
 
 Crops, of the demesne, 8 ; disuse of 
 certain kinds, 312 ; rotation of, 
 107 (Sir Richard Weston) ; 131 ; 
 199 ; in 1808, 466 ; in 1837, 364 ; 
 in 1866-1911, 464, 466; in Cam- 
 bridgeshire, 200 ; in Herefordshire, 
 228 ; in Norfolk, 174 ; in Stafford- 
 shire, 227. 
 Crosskill, Mr., and the Beverley 
 
 Beaper, 368, 369. 
 Crowbar, Mr. Elkington's, 363. 
 Crowland, 116. 
 Crowley, Bobert, 62 ; his Way to 
 
 Wealth, 73 ; his Epigrams, 73. 
 Crowmarsh, Jethro Tull at, 170. 
 Croxton, 243. 
 
 Croydon, and the Surrey Iron Bail- 
 way, 352. 
 "Crustffi," 24. 
 
 Culley, (>eorge (and see J. Bailey) on 
 large cattle, 179 ; his OhservaiU/ns 
 on Live Stock, 185. 
 Culleys, the, 318, 354. 
 Cullum, Sir John, his History of the 
 Manor of Hawated, 11, 43, 135; 
 on Suffolk Punches, 193. 
 Cumberland, report on (Bailey and 
 Culley), 48, 226 ; enclosure in, 48 ; 
 the poorest county, 146. 
 Curwen, J. C, M.P., his Speech on 28 
 
 May, 1816, 314, 320. 
 Custom, the tyranny of, 132, 166, 
 168, 202, 220, 275, 378 ; influence 
 of, in tithes, 333, 338, 339. 
 
INDEX 
 
 47» 
 
 Customs of manoiB, 43, 48. 
 
 Dairies, of the Middle Ages, 14 ; of 
 the seventeenth century, 109 ; 
 1863-1874, 372 ; of modem times, 
 388 aeq. ; dairy produce in Lei- 
 cestershire, 187 ; in Cheshire, 194 ; 
 in Essex, in 1893, 381 ; dairy 
 appliances, 390 ; dairy women 
 sometimes threshed the com, 11 ; 
 the British Dairy Farmers' Asso- 
 ciation, 388 ; the Dairy Shorthorn 
 Association, 388 ; dfiiry appUances, 
 390 (and see MUk). 
 
 " Daisses," 2. 
 
 " Dales," 24. 
 
 Danes, the, and monastic establish- 
 ments, 334, 336. 
 
 Darley Arabian, 183. 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus, on steam, in The 
 Botanic Oarden, 362. 
 
 Davenant, Charles, his Essay upon the 
 . . . baUance of Trade, 146, 466 ; 
 his Works, PolitiecU and Commer- 
 cial, edited by Sir C. Whitworth, 
 463. 
 
 Daventry, industries at, 310. 
 
 Davis, Richard, his Oxfordshire, 234, 
 293. 
 
 Davis, Thomas, his WUtshire, 233, 
 294. 
 
 Davies, David, his Case of Labourers 
 in Husbandry stated and considered, 
 303 307. 
 
 Davy,' Sir Humphry, 216, 217, 369 ; 
 his Elements of Agricultural Chemis- 
 try, 217 ; his lecture on Soils, 217 ; 
 his lectures, 216, 369. 
 
 Davy, William, his North Devons, 
 364. 
 
 Dawley Farm, BoUngbroke at, 173. 
 
 Dawson, William, at Frogden, adopts 
 drills, 177. 
 
 "Daye,"the, 11. 
 
 " Daymen," on rotuls, 286. 
 
 Dean, the forest of, 391. 
 
 Deans, Jearmie, 163. 
 
 Deanston Cotton Works, James Smith 
 at, 363, 364. 
 
 Decimation tax, the, 140. 
 
 Dedham, industries at, 309. 
 
 Dee. the, 276. 
 
 Deeping Fens, 246, 246. 
 
 Deer-parks, 60, 62. 
 
 Deeryng, Bichard, 99. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, his Tour through . . . 
 Great Britain, 166, 168 ; on Lei- 
 cestershire horses, 183. 
 
 Deege, Sir Simon, 86. 
 
 DeUuneres, from Cheshire, 178. 
 
 De Laune, on pEistures, 384. 
 
 Demesne, the, 6 ; condition of, 66 ;. 
 increase of, 38 ; produce of, 8 seq. ; 
 survey of, 20. 
 Dendy, F. W., The ancient farms of 
 
 Northumberland (1893), 60. 
 Denmark, hostility of, in 1800, 270 ; 
 milking herd-books in, 389 ; re- 
 ceipts per cultivated acre one- 
 third larger than in Great Britain,. 
 401. 
 Denton, Rev. W., England in the 
 fifteenth century, 60. 
 
 Denys, Henry, 99. 
 
 Depression, of agricultural industry, 
 (1813-1836), 436 ; (1814), 322 seq. ; 
 (1816-1837), 349; (1875-1884), 374, 
 376,376«e9., 393,411; (1891-1899), 
 374, 376, 393; extravagance blamed 
 for, 347 ; but not altogether justly, 
 348 ; The Richmond Commission, 
 377 ; Royal Commission of, 1893, 
 380 ; commercial depression, 374 ; 
 decennial theory of, 374. 
 
 Deptford, powder mills at, 309 ; 
 price of floiur at, in 1813, 319. 
 
 Derbyshire, Report on (Farey), 227 ; 
 (Brown), 294; in 1770, 199, 
 200. 
 
 Devon Herd-book, the, 373. 
 
 Devonshire, Report on (Fraser), 294 ; 
 earthworks, 2 ; industries in, 
 311. 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, tenancies-at- 
 will under, 200. 
 
 " Devonshiring " (Sir Richard Wes- 
 ton's), 107. 
 
 Diamond-backed moth, the, 386. 
 
 Dibbing, 11 ; origin of, 101 ; at 
 Holldiam, 220 ; in Gloucestershire, 
 199. 
 
 Digger Movement, the, 120 seq. 
 
 Digges, Leonard, his Book named 
 Tectonicon, 420. 
 
 Dilston, John Grey, of, 318. 
 
 Dingles, the, at Welcombe, 68. 
 
 Disestablislunent of the Church, 402 ; 
 in Wales, 403 ; demanded by the 
 Labourers' Union, 410. 
 
 Dishley, see Robert Bakewall. 
 
 Distilleries, and the price of com, 264, 
 264. 
 
 Distress, the law of, modified in 1883, 
 379. 
 
 Ditchmarsh, 117. 
 
 Dodde-reade (Kentish wheat), 93. 
 
 Dogs, Worlidge on, 130. 
 
 Dog-whipper's land, 26. 
 
 Doles, 26 seq. 
 
 Domesday Book, 21, 22 ; of Castle 
 Combe, 43. 
 
 Don, the, 117,277. 
 
480 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Donaldson, James, 112; his Norih- 
 amptonahire, 236, 244; his Hut- 
 bcmdry ematomiaed, 114, 430; 8ul- 
 vocate of tenant-right, 114 ; on the 
 tyranny of custom, 134 ; on 
 ploughs in Northamptonshire, 203. 
 Doncaster (Ermine Street), 279. 
 Donnington, glassworks at, 310. 
 Dorsetshire,Beport on (Claridge), 233 ; 
 (Stevenson), 233 ; commons in, 2 ; 
 farthingholds, 22; industries in, 
 312; bankruptcies in 1816-1820, 
 323. 
 
 Douglas, the, 277. 
 
 Dovecotes of the monasteries, 334. 
 
 Dover, paper industry at, 309. 
 
 Dover-court beetle, a, 10. 
 
 Downton, 390. 
 
 Drage, 9. 
 
 Drainage, 10, 11, 94, 362-365 (1837- 
 1874); Walter BUth on, 114; 
 Robert Child on, 112, 115; not 
 possible on open-fields, 122 ; of 
 common pastures, 199 ; the Great 
 Level, 117; "thorough," 193; 
 pubUc loans for, 364 ; (h-ain pipes, 
 364 ; drainage in Essex and Sufiolk, 
 192, 363; in Leicestershire, 363; 
 in Hertfordshire, 363. 
 
 Drakelow, 187. 
 
 Drayton Beauchamp (Hooker at), 
 25. 
 
 Drayton, Michael, his Nymphidia, 
 98. 
 
 Driffield, 153. 
 
 Driftways, 27, 96, 285. 
 
 Drilling (and see Jethro Tull), 219, 
 220 ; the Northumberland drill, 
 366 ; the Sufiolk, 356 ; seed and 
 manure drills, 369. 
 
 Driver, Abraham and William, their 
 Hampshire, 300. 
 
 Dubravius, Janus, Bishop of Olmutz, 
 his New Booke of Oood Husbandry, 
 424. 
 
 Ducie, Lord, 172. 
 
 Duckett, Thomas, his Proceedings Con- 
 cerning the Improvement of Land, 
 427. 
 
 Ducking-stool, the, 19. 
 
 Dudley, Dud, his experiments with 
 sea-coal, 110. 
 
 Dugdale, Sir William, his History of 
 ImhamJcing and Draining, 118, 428. 
 
 Dun, David, his Blackfaced Heaths, 
 354. 
 
 Dunstable (Icknield Street), 279. 
 
 Dunstan, St., 336. 
 
 Dunstan pillar lighthouse, 163. 
 
 Durham, Beport on (Granger), 226. 
 
 Durham ox, the, 188. 
 
 Duisley, industries at, 311. 
 
 Duty, on brick and timber, abolition 
 of, 371 ; on undeveloped land, 399. 
 
 Dyer, John, The Fleece, 80, 98. 
 
 Dymock, Cressy, possible author of 
 Hartlib's Essay for AdvancemerU of 
 Husbandry-Learning, etc., 426. 
 
 E., B., his Discourse of Housebandrie, 
 
 422. 
 Earby, Sir Anthony, his case, in 
 
 1633, 433. 
 East and West Common, 246, 250. 
 East and West Deeping Fens, 246. 
 East India Company, the, 79. 
 Eastington, 232. 
 Eastland or Baltic Company, the, 
 
 79. 
 East Lothian, wheat grown there 
 
 only, in 1716, 160. 
 Ecclesiastical organisation, 334 ; the 
 
 Beformation and, 340. 
 Eden, Sir F. M., prices in 1742-66, 
 
 262; hia State of the Poor, 316. 
 Edgar, the Peaceful, 336. 
 Edges, 24. 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria, on Arthur Young's 
 Ireland, 196 ; her Essay on Irish 
 Bulls, 208. 
 Edmonton Common, 227. 
 Edmimd, King, his Synod at London, 
 
 335. 
 Education, Acts of 1870, 1873, and 
 1876, 409 ; Agricultural, 390 teq. ; 
 Elementary, 391 ; under the later 
 Stewarts, 132 ; school-gardens, 391. 
 Edward the Confessor, and tithes, 
 
 337. 
 Edward I., a gardener, 31 ; and 
 population, 60 ; road improvement 
 under, 280. 
 Edward II., a farmer, 31. 
 Edward III., 35, 46. 
 Edward IV., 46. 
 
 Edward VI. , Latimer's sermon before, 
 52 ; re-enacts Statutes of Merton 
 and Westminster, 72 ; legislation 
 for hops, 92 ; legislation against 
 commercial landowners, 144 ; Visi- 
 tations of Bishops imder, 280. 
 Edwards, Dr., of Barnard Castle, his 
 Plan of an Undertaking for the 
 Improvement of Husbandry, 207. 
 Eel worms, 386. 
 Egremont, Lord, 207, 221. 
 Electricity, a possible fertilising agent, 
 
 386. 
 Elephants, recomimended by Bobert 
 
 duld, 112. 
 Elevators, 369. 
 Elf-furrows, 2. 
 
INDEX 
 
 481 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, her reign, 78 seq. ; 
 prosperity under, 82 ; not universal, 
 86 ; drainage of marshes under, 
 116 ; and the Com Laws, 268. 
 
 £jlkington, Joseph, his drainage 
 methods, 363; receives £1000 
 from Parliament, 363. 
 
 Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor, 68. 
 
 Ellis, William, of Gaddesden, on 
 Aylesbury farmers, 198 ; his 
 Chiltem and Vale Farming ex- 
 plained, 191 ; his Modem Husband- 
 man, 191 ; his Shepherd's Sure 
 Guide, 149. 
 
 Ellman, John, of Glynde, 187; his 
 Southdowns, 364. 
 
 Elm, fenlands of, 246. 
 
 Elmton Common, 227. 
 
 Eltsley, sheep-rot at, in 1793, 243. 
 
 Ely, 116 ; Jele of, derelict land in, 
 322 ; executions and arrests in, 
 1812-15, 323. 
 
 Ember Court, flatting mills on the 
 Mole, 309. 
 
 Emigration, 398, 408, 409 ; in 1872- 
 81, 410. 
 
 Employment, decrease of, in modem 
 times, 398. 
 
 Enclosure, 37 aeq., 66 seq., 97, 224 
 seq. ; in seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, 66 seq. ; under EILizabeth, 
 86, 87, 161, 167 ; under James I., 
 103 seq. ; Acts (enclosure), 161, 
 162, 163, 167 ; very numerous 
 between 1796 and 1812, 264 ; first 
 General Enclosure Act (1801), 262 ; 
 Act of 1773, 224 ; of 1801, 262 ; 
 of 1836, 262; of 1846, 262; 
 acreage enclosed between 1760 and 
 1816, 163, 164, 214, 216; ad- 
 vantages of, 97, 122 seq., 231, 233, 
 297 ; attacks on, 61 seq., 160 ; 
 Becon, Thomas, advocate of, 123 ; 
 Blith, Walter, advocate of, 113, 
 133 ; case for enclosure stated by 
 J. Lee, A. Moore, and S. Taylor, 
 126 ; Catthorp Common, enclosure 
 of, 126, 127 ; championed by 
 Fitzherbert and Tusser, 96, 97, 
 122, 123 ; Child, Robert, advocate 
 of, 123, 124 ; compensation, none 
 to small holders, 299 ; compulsory, 
 160 ; controversy on, in eighteenth 
 century, 162 ; com area diminished 
 by, 267 ; Cowper, John, on, 161 ; 
 Commissioners, 163 ; their pro- 
 ceedings, 298, 299 ; substituted for 
 Parliamentary Committees, 262 ; 
 Court of Chancery, sanction re- 
 quired from, 162 ; Crown, sanction 
 of required, 162 ; in Cumberland, 
 
 48 ; a curse on families, but not in 
 Leicestershire, 127 ; depopulation 
 and, 60, 161, 291, 299 ; the Digger 
 Movement and, 121 ; displacement 
 caused by, 76, 307 ; drainage of 
 Fens, compared with, 119 seq. ; 
 effects of, on rural population, 290 
 seq., 306, 306 ; socially and morally, 
 302-307; Halhead, Henry, dis- 
 approves of, 126 ; Laurence, John 
 and Edward, on, 160 ; Lee, Joseph, 
 champion of, 126 ; literature of the 
 subject, 160, 303 ; " makes fat 
 beasts and lean poor," 291 ; in 
 Midland Counties, 66, 72 ; Moore, 
 Adam, champion of, 126 ; Nouree, 
 Timothy, advocate of, 160 ; open- 
 field farms not sufferers by, 71 ; 
 Parliament and, 60 ; Elizabethan, 
 141 ; Hanoverian, 141 ; procedure, 
 prior to 1801, 249 seq. ; processes 
 of, 66 seq., 160, 167, 162; Report on, 
 to Board of Agriculture ( 1 808), 306 ; 
 roads improved by, 279 ; Rous, 
 John, disapproves of, 60 ; soil, 
 character of, and, 167 ; statistics of, 
 164, 165, 231, 306; Taylor, Sil- 
 vEuius, advocate of, 126 ; tithes 
 extinguished by, 262, 342 ; tithe- 
 owners resist, prior to 1765, 168 ; 
 voluntary arrangements, 163 ; of 
 wastes, 72, 216 ; wool, eSect on 
 quality of, 98 ; wheat, price of, 
 tweets, 167 ; Young, Arthur, on, 
 302, 305. 
 
 Enfield Common, 237. 
 
 England's Improvement, and season- 
 able advice . . , how to prepare the 
 ground for sowing Hemp and Flax 
 seed, etc. (1691), 136, 430. 
 
 Englebert, Willimm, drains the Fens, 
 116. 
 
 English Jersey Cattle Herd-book, and 
 Society, 373. 
 
 Engrossing, approved of by Edward 
 Laurence, 161, 298 ; the Com Laws 
 and, 256, 264. 
 
 An Etiquiry into the Reasons for and 
 against Inclosing the Open Fields, 
 303. 
 
 An Enquiry into the Advantages aruL 
 Disadvantages resulting from BiUs 
 of Indosure, etc., 303. 
 
 Ensilage, 387 ; in Stewart times, 131 
 
 Epping Forest, in 1794, 164, 238. 
 
 Ep worth, petition from, 119 ; in 
 dustries at, 309. 
 
 Erdeswick, Sampson, his Survey of 
 Staffordshire, 86. 
 
 Ermine Street, 279. 
 
 Erskine, Lord, at Holkham, 221. 
 
 2h 
 
482 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Essex, Report on (Young), 192, 293, 
 314 ; (Vancouver), 164, 238, 314 
 calves from, 192 ; clay-lands of, 
 379, 381 ; drainage in, 192, 193 ; 
 industries of, 308, 309 ; manure in, 
 192 ; ownership of land in, 192 
 roads in, 204 ; wages in, 314. 
 
 Estienne, Charles, 89 ; and Jean 
 Liebault, L'ctgTicuUure et Maison 
 BuaHque, 422. 
 
 Eton, prices of wheat at, 1646-1770, 
 440. 
 
 Evelyn, John, his Sylva and Terra, 
 134, 428 ; his Pomona, 428. 
 
 Evens, Mr., his nulking-herds, 389. 
 
 " Every Year's land," 198. 
 
 Eze, the, 276. 
 
 Exeter, a port, 276. 
 
 Exhall, parish tithes at, 338. 
 
 Exhaustion of unenclosed land, 64. 
 
 Extravagance, of farmers, 347 ; of 
 labourers, 347 ; of landowners, 347. 
 
 Factory, legislation of, 1833, 349. 
 
 Fcurfax, General Lord, and the 
 Diggers, 120 ; Winstanley's letter 
 to Urn, 121. 
 
 St. Faith's fair, 218. 
 
 Fallows, 33. 
 
 Famine, 34 ; anticipated in eight- 
 eenth centiuy, 210, 214, 216, 226, 
 291, 436 ; in 1812, 265 ; in France 
 in 1789, 268 ; the potato famine, 
 274, 371. 
 
 Fardels, 22. 
 
 Farey, John, his Derbyshire, 227. 
 
 Farm, meaning of the word, 50 ; 
 farms become food-factories, 214, 
 349 ; farm buildings in 1837, 355. 
 
 Farmer, The Com^leat (1760), 8. 
 
 Farmers' Magazine, The (1802), 
 founded 209 ; on Uve-stock on 
 commons, 159 ; on Holkham sheep- 
 shearings, 221 ; Wobum sheep- 
 shearings, 221. 
 
 Farm-hold, the, 21. 
 
 Farrundells, 22. 
 
 Farthingholds, 22. 
 
 Faversham, powder mills at, 309. 
 
 Federctl Union, the, 411. 
 
 Fens, the, 114 ; Reports on the Fen 
 lands, 24t3aeq.; draining of, 116 
 seq. ; extent of, 243 ; outrages in, 
 119 ; in eighteenth century, 163. 
 
 Fertilisation, cross, 386. 
 
 Fertilisers and Feeding-StuSs Act, 
 the, of 1893, 381. 
 
 Feudal dues, 141, 142. 
 
 Field churches, 337. 
 
 Field-grass husbandry, 2 seq. 
 
 Field neonea, 26. 
 
 Field-reeves, under Enclosure Act of 
 1773, 224 ; at WUburton, 246. 
 
 Fimble hemp, 30. 
 
 Finance at the Restoration, 141. 
 
 Finchley Common, 154. 
 
 Fines, of copyholds, 70. 
 
 Finger-and-toe fungus, the, 386. 
 
 Finlaison, John, his estimate of the 
 population, 266. 
 
 Fires, agrarian, in 1830-31, 326, 330. 
 
 Fish, Simon, 62. 
 
 Fishery Laws, under Elizabeth, 79. 
 
 Fish-ponds, of the monasteries, 334. 
 
 Fitzherbert, Sir Anthony, 90. 
 
 Fitzherbert, John, his Book of Hus- 
 bandry, 10, 25, 59, 65, 89, 90, 92, 93 
 seq., 105, 139, 420; his Book of 
 Svrveying, 36, 37, 39, 60, 122, 420 ; 
 on Essex roads, 204. 
 
 Fitzherbert, Rev. Reginald, 90. 
 
 Flails, 369. 
 
 Flanders, farming in, 99 ; tenant- 
 right in, 113 ; turnips in, 100 ; 
 Sir R. Weston in, 107. 
 
 Flats, 24. 
 
 Flax, 107, 108, 136, 240, 312. 
 
 Flour, white, adulteration of, 449. 
 
 Flower-growing, a branch of modem 
 agriculture, 383. 
 
 Folkingham, William, his Fevdi- 
 graphia, 424. 
 
 Foot, Peter, his Middlesex, 237. 
 
 Foot-and-mouth disease, the, 372, 
 376, 386. 
 
 Forestalling, 256, 264. 
 
 Forestry, instruction in, 391 (and see 
 Woods). 
 
 Formalin, 386. 
 
 Fomcett, the manor of, 16, 17, 40. 
 
 Forrest, " Sir " William, 62. 
 
 Forster, John, his England's Happi- 
 ness increased, 108, 428 ; on pota- 
 toes, 135. 
 
 Forster, Nathaniel, his Enquiry into 
 the present High Price of Provisions, 
 300, 303. 
 
 Fortescue, Sir John, 49. 
 
 Fortrey, Samuel, his England's In- 
 terest Considered, etc., 428. 
 
 Fosseway, the, 279. 
 
 Fothers, 25. 
 
 Fowler, Mr., of Rollright, breeder of 
 Longhoms, 187. 
 
 Fox, C. J., at the Louvre, 207. 
 
 Fox, Wilson, his Report on Agri- 
 cultural Wages in 1900, 470. 
 
 Foxes, and poultry, 106 ; black 
 foxes, 112. 
 
 Fox-hunting, 183. 
 
 France, com imported from during 
 the Napoleonic war, 269 ; the 
 
INDEX 
 
 483 
 
 Fianco-Gerznan war, 375 ; demand 
 
 for com in, in 1870-1, 371 ; war 
 
 with, 268, 269. 
 Franchise, parliamentary, demanded 
 
 by the Labourers' Union, 410 ; and 
 
 won, 411. 
 Fraser, Robert, his Devonshire, 294. 
 Fraters, 76. 
 Freeholds, at Berkeley, 45; small, 151 
 
 (and see Landowners) ; in Scotland, 
 
 161. 
 Freemen, 20, 40, 47, 48, 49, 62, 87. 
 Free Trade (tmd see Com Lcnos), not 
 
 at first a benefit to agricultural 
 
 labourers, 409. 
 Friendly Societies, the Labourers' 
 
 Union and, 410, 414 ; and the Poor 
 
 Laws, 436. 
 Frogden, drilling at, 177. 
 Frome, woollen trEide at, 311. 
 Fruit-farm, the Wobum, 383. 
 Fulhom, gardens at, 102. 
 Fuller, Thomas, on enclosures, 64 ; 
 
 on gardens, 102 ; on Tusser, 91. 
 Full land, 21. 
 Fungi, 385, 386. 
 
 G., E., his Waste Land Improvement, 
 etc., 427. 
 
 aaddesden. Little, William Ellis of, 
 191. 
 
 Gsmlingay, 243. 
 
 Gang system, the, 409 ; the Gangs 
 Act of 1867, 409. 
 
 Garden, Alexander, of Troup, 160. 
 
 Gardener, Mayster Ion, his Feate of 
 Oardeninge, 102. 
 
 Gardens, extension of, tinder Eliza- 
 beth, 86, 101, 102 ; under the 
 Stewarts, 106 ; the Landscape 
 school, 173. 
 
 Garforth, experiments at, 387. 
 
 Gascoigne, George, his Steel Olasse, 
 156. 
 
 Gay, Mr., his estimate of enclosures 
 between 14S6 and 1607, 66 ; his 
 hypothetical tables of persons dis- 
 placed by enclosures between 1486 
 and 1617, 75 ; on Fitzherbert, 90. 
 
 Geese, 17 ; on Deeping Fens, 247. 
 
 " GeUy or matty rime," 15. 
 
 Geneat land, 336. 
 
 Oentleman's Magazine, The ; refer- 
 ences to Robert Bakewell, 185. 
 
 Geology and agriculture, 385. 
 
 George II., high wages under, 262 ; 
 and Queen Ceu'oline upset at 
 Parsons Green, 283. 
 
 George HI., 23, 32 ; enclosure under, 
 56, 67, 215 ; a contributor to the 
 AnndU of Agriculture, 196 ; " Far- 
 
 mer George " and Arthur Young, 
 
 207. 
 George, Henry, 396. 
 St. George's Hill, 120. 
 Gerard, John, his Herball, 423. 
 Gerstuns, 6. 
 
 Gertruydenberg, the Peace of, 173. 
 Gilbert, Sir Joseph Henry, 217, 366, 
 
 385. 
 GUbert's Act (1782), 327, 435, 437. 
 Gin-balls, calves fed on, 204. 
 de GirEtrdin, M., on irrigation, 114. 
 Glasgow Bank, failure of the, 376. 
 Glass furnaces, 110. 
 Glauber, Johann Rudolf, his Miracu- 
 
 lum Mundi, 131. 
 Glebe land, 340. 
 Glen, the, 116. 
 Glendale, 318. 
 Gloucester, vale of, in 1789, 198, 200, 
 
 230 ; Gloucester fair, Lord Berke- 
 ley at, 31 ; Royal Agricultural 
 
 Society's Show at, in 1853, 369. 
 Gloucestershire, Report on (Turner), 
 
 230; (Rudge). 231, 294, 311; 
 
 farrundells, 22 ; open-fields, 23 ; 
 
 enclosure in, 66 ; industries in, 
 
 311. 
 Glover, Rev. Greorge, his Observations 
 
 on the present state of Pawperism in 
 
 England, 320, 324, 326. 
 Glynde, John EUman of, 187, 354. 
 Godalming, liquorice grown at, 136 ; 
 
 industries at, 309. 
 Godolphin Arabian, 183, 188. 
 Ood Spede the Plough, 424. 
 Godspenny, the, 89. 
 Gold, increased production of, 211 ; 
 
 new discoveries of, in nineteenth 
 
 century, 371. 
 Golden Valley, the, in Herefordshire, 
 
 228. 
 Gooch, William, his Cambridgeshire, 
 
 243. 
 Googe, Bamaby, The Four Bookes of 
 
 Husbandry, 99, 106, 131, 421. 
 Gores, 26. 
 
 Gorsley Common, 230. 
 Granaries, 5 ; public, 266, 257. 
 Grange, the, 6. 
 
 Granger, Joseph, his Durham, 226. 
 Grangers, 7. 
 Grant, Sir Archibald, of Monymusk, 
 
 160. 
 Grantham, assized bread at, in 1812, 
 
 460. 
 Grapes, 18. 
 
 Grasses, Thomas Coke and, 219. 
 Greenwich Mcushes, embankment of, 
 
 115. 
 St. Gregory's day, 25. 
 
484 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gresley, Sir Thomas, of Drakelow, 
 187. 
 
 Gretton, B. H., cited, 26. 
 
 Grey, John, of Dilston, 318 ; and 
 Loid Althoip, 208. 
 
 de Grey, Thomas, his Compleat Horse- 
 man and Expert Ferrier, 183, 426. 
 
 Grisone, F., his Arte of By dang, 421. 
 
 GiOBseteste, Bobert, his Biiies, 11, 33, 
 419. 
 
 Ground-game legislation, 131, 132. 
 
 Grymes, Thomas, his Honest and 
 Plaine decUmg Farrier, 106, 425. 
 
 Guano, 104, 366, 371. 
 
 Guilds, see Trade Guilds. 
 
 Guinea, or African Company, the, 79. 
 
 Guy's Cliffe, 60. 
 
 H. stamp on loaves, 450. 
 
 Haggard, Sir H. Bider, his Rural 
 
 England, 382, 470. 
 Hainault Forest in 1794, 154, 238. 
 Haines, Bichard, his Prevention of 
 
 Poverty, 429. 
 Hair-powder, 254, 264. 
 Hales, John, suggested author of the 
 
 Oompendiotts Exanrnuxtion, etc., 70, 
 
 420. 
 " Half-places," 22. 
 " Half-year " lands, 25. 
 " Half-year meads " in Dorset, 233. 
 Halhead, Henry, his IruHoaure thrown 
 
 open, 124, 426. 
 Halifax, Lord, at Abbs' Court, 172. 
 Hall, Bishop, his Satires, 82, 84. 
 Hallowmas, 9. 
 Halstead, industries at, 309. 
 Hame, manor of, 44. 
 Hamilton's ploughs, 104. 
 Hampshire, Beport on (Vancouver), 
 
 237, 293 ; (Driver), 300 ; industries 
 
 in, 309 ; tithes in kind in, 341. 
 Hams (stinted pastures), 26. 
 " Handjr-dandy," 69. 
 Hanseatic League, the, 79. 
 Hardwicke, 242. 
 Hatrgreaves, Jtunes, 205. 
 Harman, Thomas, A Caveat or Waren- 
 
 ingfor Common Gurseters, 76. 
 Harris Institute, at Preston, the, 390. 
 Harrison, William, his Description of 
 
 England, 73, 82, 84, 85, 422 ; on 
 
 enclosure, 97 ; on garden produce, 
 
 101 ; on hops, 92. 
 Harrogate, in eighteenth century, 153. 
 Harrows, 9 ; in 1837, 356 ; later, 369. 
 HartUb, Samuel, his story, 108 ; his 
 
 Legacie, 92, 102, 106, 107, 115, 119, 
 
 124, 126, 426 ; publication of, 108 ; 
 
 his Beformc^on of Schooles, 108 ; 
 
 his other books, 426 ; advocate of 
 
 tenant-right, 113 ; on cattle-breed- 
 ing, 180 ; on cheeses, 136 ; on 
 innovations, 134 ; on machine- 
 sowing, 171 ; his remedy for the 
 rot, etc., Ill ; on Beginald Scot's 
 Hop Oarden, 92. 
 
 Harvests, of Middle Ages, 11 ; in 
 Herefordshire, 301 ; a harvest in 
 each month of the year, 376 ; of 
 1715-1764, 267; of 1765-1792 
 (analysis), 268 ; of 1765-1815, 267 ; 
 of 1779, 267, 268 ; of 1789, 268 ; 
 of 1790 and 1792, 268; of 1791, 
 268 ; of 1793 (in Isle of Wight), 
 300 ; of 1793-1814 (analysis), 269 ; 
 of 1808 and 1809 (in France and the 
 Netherlands), 269; of 1809-1812, 
 319; of 1813, 265, 269, 319; of 
 1814 and 1816, 319 ; of 1845, 274 ; 
 of 1860, 371 ; of 1879, 376 ; of 
 1894, 380. 
 
 Earward, Michael, his Herds-man's 
 Mate, 429. 
 
 Hasbach, W., his History of the English 
 Agricultyrid Labourer, 470. 
 
 Hatfield Chace, 117, 119. 
 
 Hawstead, 11, 43, 136, 192. 
 
 Hay, parish tithes at, 338. 
 
 Hay-making, in 1837, 357. 
 
 Hays, hay wains of the, 32. 
 
 Haywards, 7, 26. 
 
 Hazelton, granary at, 5. 
 
 Hearth office, the, 145. 
 
 Heath, F. G., his Romance of Peasant 
 Life, etc., 470. 
 
 " Heath-croppers " of Berkshire, 177. 
 
 Hedgerows, 28. 
 
 Helenmas, 96. 
 
 St. Helens, coalfield, the, 277. 
 
 Hemp, 29, 30, 108, 136, 193, 240, 309, 
 312. 
 
 Henry III., and the Assize of Bread, 
 460. 
 
 Henry Vn., 60, 74, 79. 
 
 Henry VIII., 66 ; and the Com Laws, 
 257 ; drainage tmd reclamation 
 xuider, 116 ; feudal dues under, 141; 
 gardening under, 102 ; horses im- 
 ported by, 181 ; petition to, in 
 1614, 57, 62 ; Poor Laws, and, 74. 
 Henslow, Prof. John Stevens, treat- 
 ment of coprolites, 367. 
 Herd Books, 373. 
 Herdsham, 26. 
 Herdwioks, 178. 
 Hereford, a port, 276. 
 Hereford Herd-book and Society, 373. 
 Herefordshire, Beport on (Clark), 
 228, 301 ; crops harvested by 
 Welshmen, 301. 
 Heresbach, Conrad, 89, 99, 421. 
 
INDEX 
 
 485 
 
 Herrtage, see PaUadiug. 
 Hertfordshire, Report on (Young), 
 238, 292; (Walker), 238; com- 
 pared with Middlesex, 190, 191 ; 
 drainage in, 363 ; farming in, 191 ; 
 industries in, 309 ; vicinity to Lon- 
 don makes land valuable, 296 ; 
 tithes in kind in, 341 ; Walker on, 
 191 ; Young on, 191. 
 Hervey, Lord Francis, his edition of 
 Reyce's Breviary of Suffolk, 192, 
 424. 
 Hevingham, 240. 
 Hewer, John, his Herefords, 354. 
 Hide, 21. 
 
 Highways, 203-205, 275-289 ; at be- 
 ginning of nineteenth century, 
 285 ; Acts of 1773, 284 ; of 1836, 
 288 ; Highway, etc.. Amendment 
 Act of 1878, 289 ; Local Govern- 
 ment Act of 1888, 289; Public 
 Health Act of 1876, 289 ; Abolition 
 of turnpikes, 288 ; coimty council's 
 liability, 289 ; crimes committed 
 on, 280 ; highway districts, forma- 
 tion of, 289 ; highwaymen, 283 ; 
 legislation under the Tudois, 281 ; 
 main roads exempted from district 
 liability, 289 ; rates, under Charles 
 n., 282 ; under George IH., 284 ; 
 Select Committee of 1839, 288: 
 Turnpike Trusts, 282 seq. 
 Hill, Thomas, his Perfite ordering of 
 
 Bees, 106 ; other works, 421. 
 Hillman, David, his Ttisser Bedivivug, 
 
 91. 
 Hired labour, and hirings, 39, 53, 88, 
 
 89. 
 " Hitched " land, 248. 
 Hobbs, Mr., his milking-herds, 389. 
 Hoketide, 9. 
 Holdemess cattle, 180. 
 Holdsworth, A. H., M.P., his Turn 
 Letters on the present situation of the 
 Country, 314, 320. 
 Holkham (and see Thomas Coke), 
 ctnnual rental in 1776 and 1816, 
 217 ; sheep-shearings at, 220 ; the 
 toast, " Symmetry well covered," 
 185. 
 Holland, Henry, his Cheshire, 296. 
 HoUington Common, 227. 
 Holt, John, his Lancashire, 225, 295. 
 Home, Francis, his Principles of 
 
 Agriculture and Vegetation, 216. 
 Homer, Rev. Henry SachevereU, his 
 Essay upon the . . . method of 
 ascertaining the . . . shares of pro- 
 prietors upon the inclosure of 
 Gammon fields, 249, 303. 
 Honey, 18. 
 
 "Hooked " land, 248. 
 
 Hooker, Richard, 25. 
 
 Hope, Mr., of Rakkeillor, 173. 
 
 de I'Hdpital, Michel, 90. 
 
 Hops, 92, 108 ; diseases of, 386 ; 
 
 spread of, 136, 193. 
 Horn-shavings, as meuiure, 110, 366. 
 " Home and Thome shall make 
 England forlome," 63. 
 
 " Horse-bread," 84. 
 Horse-hoes, 369. 
 
 Horses, in 1837, 356 ; in seventeenth 
 century, 106, 183 ; Bakewell and 
 the Black Horse, 183 ; Fitzherbert 
 on, 96 ; the Great Horse, 12, 181 ; 
 harnessed by the tail in Ireland, 
 109; Hartlib's remedy for, 112; 
 horse-dealing in the seventeenth 
 century, 106 ; Markham on, 137 ; 
 Midland horses, 184 ; Mortimer on, 
 137 ; and oxen, 13 ; in Shake- 
 speare, 181, 182 : Suffolk Punch, 
 the, 193, 366 ; Stewart writers on, 
 105, 106 ; tax on agricultural 
 horses, 321 ; varieties of, 137, 181 
 seq., 366. 
 
 Hosebonderie, 8, 12, 14, 17, 419. 
 
 Houghton, John, his Collection of 
 Liters, 133, 430 ; on potatoes, 136 ; 
 on turnips, 134, 136, 166. 
 
 Houghton, Michael, grows turnips at 
 Hawstead in 1700, 136. 
 
 Howberry Farm, 170. 
 
 Howe (Hertfordshire fanner) and 
 Cromwell, 191. 
 
 Howlett, Rev. John, his Enquiry into 
 the Influence of Enclosures upon the 
 population, 299, 303, 307; his 
 Enclosures a cause of Improved 
 Agriculture, 303. 
 
 " Hubback," Mr. CoUings' buU, 188. 
 
 Hughes, William, his CompXeat Vine- 
 yard, his Flower Oarden and Oom- 
 pleat Vineyard, 136, 428. 
 
 Hull, 153, 276, 277, 278, 280. 
 
 Humber, estviary of the, 114 ; cattle 
 on, 180 ; connection of, with 
 Sheffield, 277. 
 
 Hundred Years' War, the, 35. 
 
 Hunmanby, field reeves at, 224. 
 
 Hunter, Alexander, his Oeorgical 
 Essays, 207. 
 
 Huntii^donshire, Report on (Stone), 
 238, 244, 300 ; (Parkinson), 244 ; 
 derelict land in, 322 ; industries in, 
 309. 
 
 Huntley Common, 230. 
 
 Husband-land, 21. 
 
 The Husbandman, Farmer and Oras- 
 ier's Cotnpleat Instructor, 430. 
 
 Hydrocyanic acid gas, 386. 
 
486 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Byp Doctor, The, 173. 
 
 Icknield Street, 279. 
 
 Idle, the, 117, 276. 
 
 Ilminster, cloth trade at, 178. 
 
 Imports, statistics of, from 1866- 
 1910, 462, 463. 
 
 Impropriators, lay, 339, 340. 
 
 Improvement of Land Act, the, of 
 1899, 381. 
 
 Improvers in the Knowledge of 
 Agriculture, Society of (Scotland), 
 173, 209. 
 
 In-breeding, 386. 
 
 Income, of the nation in 1688, 146. 
 
 Incubators, in Stewart times, 131. 
 
 Individual occupation (and see En- 
 doaure), 69, 64, 103, 106, 162, 199, 
 297, 303 ; hampered for want of 
 capital, etc., 106. 
 
 Industries, migration northwards, 
 308; local, 308, 309; decay of, 
 309 aeq. 
 
 In-field land, in Scotland, 160. 
 
 Ingleby, C. M., Shakespeare amd the 
 mdoevre of common fields at Wel- 
 conibe, 68. 
 
 Ings, 26. 
 
 Inland, a thane's, 336. 
 
 " Inning," 88. 
 
 Insects, 386, 386. 
 
 Instruction, technical, under Eliza- 
 beth, 87. 
 
 Insurance, not an investment, 414 ; 
 village societies for National Insur- 
 ance, 417 ; suggested use for funds 
 accumulating in the Commission- 
 ers' hands, 406. 
 
 Intensive cultivation, 401, 402. 
 
 Ipswich, Dairy Institute at, 390. 
 
 Ireland, ploughs in, 109 ; Irish com 
 after 1806, 319 ; Representative 
 Church Body, the, 403. 
 
 Iron, corrugated, 387. 
 
 Ironworks of Surrey, Sussex, etc., 110. 
 
 Irwell, the, 276. 
 
 Isle of Ely, see Ely. 
 
 Isle of Wight, encloBiire in, 60. 
 
 Islip, 236. 
 
 Iter, the Roman, 279. 
 
 Ivel, agricultural motors, 387. 
 
 Jacob, W., F.R.S., his Inquiry into 
 the causes of AgricuUwral Distress, 
 320, 328. 
 
 James I., distress under, 68 ; agri- 
 cultural progress, 103 seq. ; feudal 
 dues under, 141 ; and horse-racing, 
 183 ; his ^ab horses, 183. 
 
 James, William, and Jacob Malcolm- 
 son, their BucMnghamuhire, 234. 
 
 St. John's day, 6, 11. 
 
 Johnson, Rev. A. H., The Disappear- 
 ance of the Small Landowner, 66, 75, 
 292. 
 
 Johnston, James, 360, 366. 
 
 Johnstone, John, his Account of Mr. 
 Joseph Elkington's Mode of Drain- 
 ing, 363. 
 
 K, stallion at Dishley, 184. 
 
 Kainit, 366. 
 
 Keal, 160. 
 
 Kebbel, T. E., his AgricuUttral Lab- 
 ourer, 470. 
 
 Kendal, " statesmen " of, 296. 
 
 Kenilworth, horn industry at, 310. 
 
 Kennet's Parochial Antiquities, 67. 
 
 Kent, Report on (Boys), 293 ; ploughs 
 in, 109 ; industries in, 309. 
 
 Kent, Nathaniel, his Norfolk, 239, 
 305 ; his Hints to Oentlemen of 
 Landed Property, 154, 303, 306; 
 on drainage, 155 ; his description 
 of the Windsor farm, 207. 
 
 Kenyon, Ruth, translator of Has- 
 bach's English Agricultural. Lab- 
 ou/rer, 470. 
 
 Kett's rebellion, 48, 72, 96. 
 
 Kettering, worsted industry at, 310. 
 
 Ketton cattle, 187. 
 
 Kew, experiments at, 387. 
 
 Kidderminster, carpet industry at, 
 311. 
 
 Killingworth Colliery, Stephenson's 
 engines at, 363. 
 
 Bung, Gregory, on ground game, 132, 
 145 ; his Statistical Account of the 
 State and Condition of England and 
 Wales in 1696, 145 ; his estimate of 
 barren lands in 1696, 162 ; his 
 estimate of population, 266 ; his 
 estimate of families, statiis, in- 
 come, etc., for 1688, 463 ; his 
 Nature^ arid Political Observations 
 and ConclusionB upon the State and 
 Condition of England, 1696, 465. 
 
 King's lock, the, 267. 
 
 King's Sedgmoor, 232. 
 
 Kirklevington, Thomas Bates of, 
 364. 
 
 Knaptoft, John Moore, minister of, 
 125. 
 
 Knapwell, 243. 
 
 Knaresborough, forest of, 153 ; 
 " BUnd Jack of," 284. 
 
 Knightley, Sir Charles, his Short- 
 horns, 354. 
 
 Kohl rabi, 208. 
 
 L. J., his Discourse Concerning . . . 
 drayning and embanking, 425. 
 
INDEX 
 
 487 
 
 Laboureis, agricultural, circum- 
 stances of, as compared with 
 artisans, 414, 416 ; condition of, 
 from 1760 onward, 407 ; from 1816 
 onwttrd, 407 ; at the present day, 
 406, 407, 411 aeq. ; distress in 
 early nineteenth century, 327 ; 
 extravagance of, 347 ; Federal 
 Union, the, 411 ; forecast of a 
 possible future, 416 ; no formula- 
 tion of general aims as yet, 411 ; 
 most important of the three agri- 
 cultural classes, 411, 417 ; paraded 
 by the overseers, 328 ; parlia- 
 mentary franchise obtained by, 
 411; pauper labour, 328 ; the 
 Agricultural Labourers' Union, 410. 
 
 Labourers, Statutes of, 41, 61, 53. 
 
 Labour market, the, 51, 52, 63, 67, 
 72, 76; under Elizabeth, 86, 87, 
 89 ; in eighteenth century, 148, 
 262 ; in nineteenth century, 349 ; 
 glutted at beginning of nineteenth 
 century, 317. 
 
 Labour migrations, 300. 
 
 Labour rents, 7, 35, 39, 48. 
 
 Lambert, James, his Countryman's 
 Treasure, 429. 
 
 Lammas Day, 9, 14, 25. 
 
 Lammas Lands, 25. 
 
 Lamond, Miss E., edits Walter of 
 Henley, etc., 419 ; T?ie Compendious 
 Examination, etc., 420. 
 
 Lamport, W., Cursory Remarks on the 
 importance of Agriculture, 303. 
 
 Lancashire, Keport on (Holt), 295 ; 
 potatoes brought to, from Ireland, 
 135. 
 
 Land, acreage under various crops in 
 1808, 466 ; in 1866-1911, 464, 466 ; 
 distribution of, in 1660, 140 ; in 
 1827, 466 ; " fancy " value of, 321, 
 326 ; free and unfree, 6 ; profit- 
 able investment at end of eighteenth 
 century, 213, 220 ; suggested sur- 
 render of, in extinction of tithes, 
 403 ; of England and Wales, and 
 its products in 1688, 466. 
 
 ^' Lands," 24. 
 
 Land agents, rise of the profession, 
 151. 
 
 Landed gentry, 141 seq. ; becoming 
 commercial, 144. 
 
 Landmarks, removal of, 156. 
 
 Landowners, duties of, 400 ; common 
 danger confronts to-day, 403 ; 
 relations with tenants in 1888, 394 ; 
 in 1893, 381 ; ruin of, in 1814-36, 
 321 seq., 326, 327 ; supine at the 
 present day, 399, 400, 401 ; far- 
 mers as, between 1813 and 1836, 
 
 298 ; plentiful in some counties, 
 
 293, 297 ; small, decline in numbers 
 
 after 1689, 292; at present day, 
 
 396, 417. 
 Land shares, 24. 
 Land tax, rejected by the Restoration 
 
 Parliament, 142. 
 Langland, WiUiam (Piers Plowman), 
 
 49, 102, 156. 
 Lantchetts, 24. 
 "Large Letter, The" (of R. Child), 
 
 109, 116, 119, 124, 126, 180. 
 Lark, the, 116. 
 Latimer, Hugh, 52, 62, 73; his 
 
 sermons ageunst commercial land- 
 owners, 144. 
 Latimers, the, 62, 296. 
 " Launchers," 24. 
 Laurence, Edward, his Duty of a 
 
 Steward to his Lord, 151, 157, 298 ; 
 
 on consolidation of farms, 298 ; on 
 
 cow-dvmg as fuel, 198. 
 Laurence, Bev. John, 154, 164 ; his 
 
 New System of Agriculture, 161. 
 Lauro, Pietro, translator of Columella, 
 
 419. 
 de Laval Separator, the, 390. 
 Lavenham School, 196. 
 de Lavergne, M., 148. 
 Law Courts, extended jurisdiction of, 
 
 54 ; venality of, 69. 
 Lawes, Sir John Bennet, 217, 366, 
 
 367, 371, 386. 
 " Lawns," 24. 
 Lawrence, Anthony, and John Beale, 
 
 Nurseries, Orchards, Profitable Oar- 
 dens, etc., 429. 
 Lawrence-Kennedy Milking Machine, 
 
 the, 388. 
 Lawson, William, his New Orchard, 
 
 180, 424. 
 Lawsons, the, Peter and Charles, 219. 
 Lea, the, 276. 
 Leadam, J. S., his Domesday of In- 
 
 dosures, 61. 
 Leaders, lack of, 139, 140. 
 Leamington, Congress of Agricultural 
 
 Labourers' Unions at, 410. 
 Leases, in the eighteenth century, 200, 
 
 20 1 ; at its close, 275 ; distrust of, in 
 
 early nineteenth century, 325, 348 ; 
 
 under Thomas Coke, 219, 220; 
 
 fines for, 200, 201 ; terms of, 49, 69. 
 Lease-mongers, 73. 
 Leatham, Isaac, his East Biding of 
 
 Yorkshire, 224, 239. 
 Leather, home-tanned, 29 ; the 
 
 leather tax, 321. 
 " Leazes," 25. 
 
 Lebotwood, dye-works at, 310. 
 Lechlade, a port, 276. 
 
488 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Leokhampstead, parish allowances 
 
 stored at, 330. 
 Lee, Rev. Joseph, his Eh-afta roD 
 'kypov, or Vindication of a Regu- 
 lated Enclosure, 125 aeq., 1S5, 166, 
 
 157, 164, 427. 
 Leeds, cloth trade of, 277. 
 Lefeldt Separator, the, 390. 
 Leicesteis (sheep), 178. 
 Leicesteislure, Report on (Pitt), 237 ; 
 drainage in, 363 ; enclosure in, 72, 
 
 168 ; farming in eighteenth century, 
 
 194 ; land-holding in, 194 ; its 
 
 superior pigs, 139. 
 Leigh, VaJentine, his Science of 
 
 Surveying, 422. 
 Leominster ore, 81, 98, 138. 
 Lesage, H. J., on Arthur Young, 
 
 206. 
 Levant or Turkey Company, the, 
 
 79. 
 Level, the Great (see Fens and Bed- 
 ford Level), 
 Lever, Thomas, his sermons, 67. 
 Leverington, 245. 
 Levett, John, his Orderinge of Bees, 
 
 106. 425. 
 Lexington, 3. 
 Leyboum, William, his Planometria, 
 
 426. 
 Licenses, from the lord of the manor, 
 
 19 ; to export com, 267. 
 Liebault, Jean, see Eatienne. 
 von Liebig, Justus, 217, 360, 366 ; his 
 
 Organic Chemist in its Relation to 
 
 AgrieuUure, 366, 367. 
 Lilbume, John, 119. 
 Lime, 10, 107, 109, 366 ; super- 
 phosphate, 367. 
 Lincolns (sheep), 178. 
 Lincolnshire, Report on (Young), 223, 
 
 239, 246; (Stone), 238, 246, 246, 
 
 247,248; cattle in, 239 ; industries 
 
 in, 309. 
 Lincolnshire ox, the, 180. 
 Lindley, Dr. John, 361. 
 Linseed, 368. 
 Liquorice, 108, 136, 312. 
 Littleton, Sir Thomas, his Tenures, 
 
 420. 
 Liverpool, Lord, and the wool duties, 
 
 189. 
 " Livings," 21, 60. 
 Llangattock, out-door rehef refused 
 
 at, 330. 
 Locke, John, on high rents, 213. 
 Locust-pods, 368. 
 Loders, sail-cloth industry at, 312. 
 Lodge, see PaUadius. 
 Logan, Captain John, his Treatise of 
 
 Honor, 144. 
 
 Logwood mills on the Wandle, 309. 
 
 London, importance of, as a market, 
 146 ; population of, 146 ; Synod 
 of, in 944, 335 ; Arthur Young in, 
 195. 
 
 Longhom cattle, 180, 187. 
 
 " Loons," 24. 
 
 Lot-meadows, in Gloucestershire, 230; 
 in Oxfordshire, 26. 
 
 Loughborough, 176. 
 
 Louth, 246. 
 
 Lovell, Capt., drains the Fens, 116. 
 
 Lowe, Robert, his Nottmgha/mshire, 
 237, 293. 
 
 Lucerne, 110. 
 
 Lugg, the, 276. 
 
 St. Luke's Day, 13. 
 
 Lustres, 80. 
 
 Lynches, 2, 24, 28. 
 
 Lynchets, 2. 
 
 Lynn, Arthur Young at, 195 ; port 
 of, 276 ; export of com from, in 
 eighteenth century, 194 ; no wheat 
 between Lynn and Holkham, 218. 
 
 Lynn Law, the, 117. 
 
 Lyttelton, Lord, his Considerationa on- 
 the present slate of affairs, 262. 
 
 M. stamp on loaves, 461. 
 M'Adam, John Loudon, 278, 284; 
 his rivahy with Telford, 287; 
 Surveyor-General of Roads in 
 Great Britain, 287 ; of Bristol 
 Roads, 287 ; his Practical Essay on- 
 . . . Public Roads, 287 ; his Re- 
 marks on the present system of Road- 
 making, 287. 
 
 M'Donald, Donald, his AgricuUurat 
 Writers, 419, 424, 425. 
 
 Mace, Thomas, his Discourse . . . con- 
 cerning the Highways of England, 
 278, 286, 429. 
 
 Machmery, under the Stewarts, 131 ; 
 at end of the eighteenth century, 
 208, 216; at beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, 356, 368 ; in 
 1849-53, 409 ; bam machinery, 
 370 ; fostered by Royal Agri- 
 cultural Society, 369. 
 
 Madder, 108, 136, 312. 
 
 Magdalen College, Oxford (Quinton), 
 50. 
 
 Magistrates, extended jurisdiction of, 
 141 ; bridge rates and, 281 ; high- 
 way rates, 284, 288 ; wages fixed 
 by, 64, 86, 87 ; and the Assize of 
 Bread, 448. 
 
 Maidstone, paper industry at, 309. 
 
 Maislen, 8. 
 
 Maitland, Prof. F. W., 21, 22. 
 
 Maize, 266. 
 
INDEX 
 
 48» 
 
 Malbie, Nicholas, his Plaine and Eaaie 
 vjay to remedie a horse, etc., 421. 
 
 Mallett, a follower of Townshend, 175. 
 
 Mangold-wurzel, 208, 219 ; mangold 
 fly, the, 386. 
 
 Mannyng, Robert, his HaruUyng 
 Synne, 166. 
 
 Memorial system, 1 seq. ; break-up of, 
 31 seq., 214 ; churches, 336 ; courts, 
 q.v. ; roads under the, 280, 281. 
 
 Manufactures, development of, 205, 
 211 308 
 
 Manure, 10, 51, 94, 97, 104, 109, 174 ; 
 artificial, 366 seq. ; 1837-74, 365- 
 368 ; in Essex, 192 ; farmyard 
 muck, 365 ; Googe on, 100, 101 ; in 
 Hertfordshire, 191 ; Sir Hugh Plat 
 on, 100 ; " Muck the mother of 
 money," 218; in Sufiolk, 192; a 
 weed-carrier, 172. 
 
 Manwood, John, his Forest Laws, 424. 
 
 Market-Gardeners' Compensation Act, 
 the (1895), 381. 
 
 Markham, Gervase, on cattle, 138 ; on 
 sheep, 138 ; on pigs, 139 ; his 
 doubtful reputation, 106 ; under- 
 takes to write no more books on the 
 diseases of cattle, etc., 423 ; his 
 Cheape and Oood Husbandry, 137, 
 422 ; his Country Farm, 106, 422 ; 
 his Discourse on Horsemanshippe, 
 
 105, 422 ; his English Housewife, 
 82, 106, 422 ; his Enrichment of the 
 Weald of Kent, 94, 105, 423 ; his 
 Farewell to Husbandry, 105, 422 ; 
 his How to Chuse Ride Trayne, etc., 
 
 106, 422 ; his other works, 422, 423. 
 Marl, 10, 31, 51, 94, 100, 109, 366; 
 
 revived by Townshend, 174 ; in 
 Suffolk, 192. 
 
 Marshall, William, 382 ; his Abstract of 
 the Reports to the Board of Agricul- 
 ture, 308 ; his Appropriation and 
 Inclosure, etc., 292 ; his General 
 Survey . . . of the Rural Economy 
 of England, 196 ; his Midiamd 
 Counties, 185, 292 ; account of his 
 work, 196, 197 ; at Dishley. 184 ; 
 on enclosure in Leicestershire, 168 ; 
 on the Fen lands, 244 ; in the Vale 
 of Gloucester, 198 ; on Hereford- 
 shire roads, 204 ; on Leicestershire 
 roads, 203 ; on Lincolnshire cattle, 
 239 ; on " lynches," 2 ; on Oxford 
 roads, 204 ; on the Vale of Picker- 
 ing, 200 ; on rams, 186 ; on roads 
 in the eighteenth century, 284 ; on 
 " Terramania," 292 ; on wild field- 
 grass husbandry, 2 ; on Yorkshire 
 in 1787, 201. 
 
 Marshom, 240. 
 
 Marston Moor, hunters at the battle 
 
 of, 104. 
 Martens, 112. 
 
 Mascall, Leonard, his Booke of Cattell, 
 105, 138 ; his Countryman's Jewel, 
 138 ; his Ordring of Poultry, 106 ; 
 his Book of . . . how to graff and 
 plant all aortes of Trees, 421 ; on 
 pigs, 139 ; on sheep, 138 ; on soils, 
 136. 
 Mashelson, 8. 
 Maslin, 8. 
 Massinger, Philip, A new way to pay 
 
 old Debts, 63, 69. 
 Massledine, 8. 
 Mather, William, his Repairing of 
 
 Highways, 430. 
 Mathew, Francis, suggests the Thames 
 and Avon Canal, 277 ; his Af editerr- 
 artean Passage by Water fromLondon 
 to Bristol, 277, 427 ; his Opening of 
 Rivers for Navigation, 277, 427 ; his 
 Mediterranean Passage ... be- 
 tween . . . Lynn and Yarmouthy 
 427. 
 
 Maul, a, 10. 
 
 Maulden, small holdings at, 416, 416. 
 
 Mavor, William, his Berkshire, 293. 
 
 Maxey, Edward, his New Instruction 
 of Plowing, etc., 171, 424. 
 
 Mead, 18. 
 
 Meager, Leonard, his English Gar- 
 dener, 429 ; his Mystery of Hus- 
 bandry, 429. 
 
 Meat, dead, importation of, after 
 1877, 378. 
 
 Mechi, John Joseph, 372. 
 
 Meikle, Andrew, his threshing- 
 machine, 208. 
 
 "A Member of the Legislature," An 
 Enquiry into the Reasons for and 
 against Inclosing the Open Fidds, 
 303. 
 
 Menai Straits, the, and Anglesey 
 cattle, 179. 
 
 Mendelism, 386. 
 
 Mendip Hills, the, in the eighteenth 
 century, 164 ; a parsimonious, 
 landlord, 248. 
 
 Merchant Adventurers, the, 79. 
 
 Meres, 24. 
 
 Mersey, the, 276, 278. 
 
 Mersey and Trent Canal, the, 278. 
 
 Merstham, the Surrey Iron Railway 
 and, 352. 
 
 Merula, G., editor of Columella, 419. 
 
 Mestilon, 8. 
 
 Metayer, the, 42. 
 
 Metcalf, John (Blind Jack of Knores- 
 borough), 284. 
 
 Meteorology, 386. 
 
490 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Metheglyn, 18. 
 
 Middle class, rise of the, in Tudor 
 times, 86. 
 
 Middle horn cattle, 179. 
 
 Middlemen, 73, 266. 
 
 Middlesex, Report on (Middleton), 
 222, 237 ; (Foot), 237 ; and Hert- 
 fordshire compared, 190, 191 ; the 
 richest county, 146. 
 
 Middleton, John, his Middlesex, 222, 
 237. 
 
 Migration of labour, effected by the 
 Labourers' Union, 410. 
 
 Milan decree, the, 270. 
 
 MUdenhall, the, 116. 
 
 Mildew, 109. 
 
 MUes, Abraham, his Countryman's 
 Friend, etc., 428. 
 
 Military tenure, abolition of, 141 seq. 
 
 Milk, of ewes, 95, 202 ; milch cows, 
 388 ; milking machines, 388 ; 
 pedigree milkers, 389 ; milk re- 
 cords, 388, 389 ; the Sale of Milk 
 Begulations, 388 ; scarcer in vil- 
 lages than in towns, 416 ; wholesale 
 trade in, 312. 
 
 Mills, 19, 29. 
 
 Milton, John, his tract Of Education, 
 addressed to Samuel Hartlib, 108. 
 
 Minster, the old, 336. 
 
 Mirabeau, and Chivch lands, 396. 
 
 Miscellin, 8. 
 
 Mixtilio, 8. 
 
 Moduses, 342. 
 
 Moellenbrock, V. A., his CocMea/ria 
 Curiosa, 429. 
 
 Mole, mills on the, 309. 
 
 Mole-heaps, 94. 
 
 Molesworth, Lord, on Tusser, 91. 
 
 Monastic estabhsbments, 33, 67, 76 ; 
 and the Danish invasion, 334, 336 ; 
 dissolution of, 85, 89 ; in the Fen 
 lEuids, 116; and tithes, 333 seq. 
 
 " Monday men," at Castle Combe, 
 43. 
 
 Monmouth's rebellion, 140. 
 
 Moor evil, the (on Otmoor), 236. 
 
 Moore, Adam, his Bread for the Poor, 
 etc., 125 seq., 427. 
 
 Moore, John, minister of Knaptoft, 
 his Crying Sin of England, etc., 126, 
 427 ; his Scripture word against 
 Jndosure, 125. 
 
 Moore, Sir Jonas, his History of the 
 Oreat Level of the Fennes, 116, 430 ; 
 his England's Interest, etc., 430. 
 
 Mops, 64, 88. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, his Utopia, 61, 
 63, 68, 76, 420. 
 
 Morfe Common (sheep), 178, 228. 
 
 Morning Chronicle, The, 370. 
 
 Mortimer, John, his Whole Art of 
 Husbandry, etc., 131, 136, 137 ; on 
 cattle, 138, 180 ; on horses, 137 ; 
 on pigs, 139 ; on sheep, 138. 
 
 Morton, John, Archbishop, his straw- 
 berries, 116 ; his " Leam," 117. 
 
 Morton, John Chalmers, 361. 
 
 Moryson, Fynes, his Itinerary (1617), 
 8, 9, 86. 
 
 Mother churches, 333, 336. 
 
 Motors, agricultural, 387. 
 
 Mount Prosperous, Jethro TuU's 
 farm, 170. 
 
 Muggs (sheep), from Northumberland, 
 178. 
 
 Mulse water, 18. 
 
 Mundesley, 61. 
 
 Murrain, the, 16, 51, 53, 66, 73. 
 
 Murray, Adam, his Warwickshire, 236. 
 
 Muscovite Company, the, 79. 
 
 Musk-cats, 112. 
 
 Mutton, 178, 189 ; imports of, in 1882 
 and 1899, 378. 
 
 Naphthalene, 386. 
 
 Napoleonic wars, 268, 269 aadpassimi 
 
 effect of, on trade, etc., 317 seq. 
 Naseby Field in 1770, 198. 
 National debt, the (1792-1816), 316. 
 National expenditure, (1792-1816), 
 
 316; (1782-1792), 321; (1802-1812), 
 
 391. 
 National income, the, in 1688, 146, 
 Navy, Maintenance Act of 1662, 268 ; 
 
 contracts in 1813, 319. 
 Nene, the, 116. 
 
 Nettles, linen made from, 29, 30. 
 Neutral ships, com in, seized, 266. 
 Newbury, industries at, 309, 310. 
 Newcastle, Duke of, his Methode et 
 
 Invention NowveUe de dresser les 
 
 GhevoMX, 183, 427. 
 Newfoundland, nets for, made in 
 
 Dorsetshire, 312. 
 Newington Butts, 24. 
 New Leicesters, 186. 
 Newmarket, races at, established by 
 
 Charles I., 183. 
 Newport, Treaty of, 142. 
 Newspaper, the first agricultural, 133. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 107. 
 New Zealand meat, 378. 
 Nicholls, Sir George, his History of the 
 
 English Poor Law, 266, 317 ; hia 
 
 estimate of the population, 266. 
 Nineteenth Cent/wry, The, for April, 
 
 1889, article on An AgricultunU 
 
 Department, 400. 
 Noddel, 119. 
 Norden, John, his Essex described, 97, 
 
 423 ; his Surveyor's Dialogue, 116, 
 
INDEX 
 
 491 
 
 423; hia Speculum Britannieie, i23 ; 
 on the squatteiB, 126 ; on the Vale 
 of Belvoir, 168 ; on the Vale of 
 Taunton, 135. 
 
 Norfolk, Report on (Kent), 239, 305 ; 
 (Young), 197, 293 ; Defoe on, 166 ; 
 enclosure in, 66, 216, 305 ; estates 
 of aU sizes in, 293 ; farmer in 
 Devonshire, 202 j farming in eigh- 
 teenth century, 194 ; Kett's re- 
 bellion, 48, 72, 96 ; light lands of 
 Norfolk, 174, 373 ; live-stock sent 
 to Smithfield, 194 ; Marshall on the 
 farmers of, 193 ; ploughing in, 109 ; 
 polled cattle of, 180 ; turnips in, 
 166 ; writs and executions in 1814- 
 15, 323 ; Norfolk exports of com, 
 194. 
 
 North country, the, rise of industries 
 in, 308. 
 
 Northtunpton, boot industry at, 310. 
 
 Northamptonshire, Report on (Don- 
 aldson), 236, 244 ; industries in, 
 310. 
 
 Northumberland, Report on (Bailey 
 and Culley), 177, 222, 226 ; (and 
 see John Orey of Dilston). 
 
 Norwich, labour statutes at, 53 ; 
 Icknield Street, 279 ; roads near, 
 279 ; waste land near, 240 ; 
 woollen trade at, 309. 
 
 Nottingham, industries at, 310. 
 
 Nottinghamshire, Report on (Lowe), 
 237, 293 ; industries in, 310. 
 
 Notts (sheep), from Devonshire, 178. 
 
 Nourse, Timothy, his Campania 
 Foelix, 150, 430. 
 
 " Nowe-a-dayes " (Ballad), 62. 
 
 Oakingham (Wokingham), silk in- 
 dustry at, 310. 
 
 Oats, sown with barley, 9 ; best 
 sown in March, 109. 
 
 Observations on a Pamphlet entitled 
 An Enquiry into the Advantages and 
 Disadvantages of Enclosure, 303. 
 
 Odams, Mr., fertiliser, 367. 
 
 Odiham, Agricultural Society at, 209. 
 
 Oenomel, 18. 
 
 Oglander, Sir John, his Memoirs, 83. 
 
 03, from nuts, 18 ; from turnips, 111; 
 from cole-seed, 131. 
 
 Oil cake, 218. 
 
 An Old Almanack . . . printed in 
 1710, quoted, 150. 
 
 Ombersley, 276. 
 
 Onions, 102. 
 
 Open-field system, the, 224: seq., 23 
 seq., 51, 63 ; in 1700, 154 ; in 1726, 
 154 ; in 1837, 354 ; Arthur Young 
 on, 199 ; break-up of, 149 seq. ; in 
 
 Buckinghamshire, voluntary agree- 
 ments fail, 162 ; crops under, 92, 
 93, 97, 155, 199 ; decline of, 103 ; 
 disadvantages of, 155 seq., 224 seq., 
 199 ; economics of, 122, 132, 134 ; 
 enclosures and, 71, 97, 99; enclosure 
 strengthens, 56 ; enclosure of waste 
 affects, 165 ; exhaustion under, 
 166 ; extinction of, 291 ; farmers 
 different from enclosure farmers, 
 222 ; Fen lands, analogy with, 118 
 seq. ; Goths and Vandals of, 222 ; 
 herdsmen, payment to, 66 ; 
 manure, lack of, 65 ; sheep on, 95, 
 166. 
 
 Opium, taken for ague in the Fen 
 lands, 245. 
 
 Oratories, 335, 336. 
 
 Orchards, 106. 
 
 Ormerod, Eleanor, 386. 
 
 Osborne, royal farm at, 360. 
 
 Otmoor, 235. 
 
 Ouse, the Great, 116, 276 ; the Lesser, 
 116. 
 
 Out-door relief, see Poor Laws. 
 
 Out-field land, in Scotland, 160. 
 
 Ovens, of the lord of the manor, 19 ; 
 viUage, 29. 
 
 Overend and Gumey, failure of, 374. 
 
 Ownership, the incentive of, 416 ; 
 can it be established on a more 
 democratic basis, 417 ; a vital 
 principle, 417. 
 
 Owse, 109. 
 
 Oxen, dead-weight of, 98 ; used for 
 ploughs, 13, 92, 202, 354 ; Hartlib's 
 remedy for colic in. 111 ; the 
 Durham ox, 188 ; the Lincoln- 
 shire ox, 180, 181. 
 
 Oxford, Royal Agricultural Society's 
 show at, in 1839, 369. 
 
 Oxfordshire, Report on (Young), 222 ; 
 (Davis), 234, 293; industries in, 
 310. 
 
 Ox-gang, broad, 21 ; narrow, 22. 
 
 Pack-saddles, 204. 
 Paddle-plough, for potatoes, 369. 
 Page, T. W., The End of Villeinage in 
 
 England, 23, 40. 
 Palavicino, Sir Horatio, 114. 
 Falissy, Bernard, 89. 
 Palladius, on draining, 10 ; rhymed 
 
 version of, 33, 419 ; 99. 
 Palliards, 76. 
 
 Palmer, John, his mail-coaches, 284. 
 Panic, agrictilttural, 371 ; financial, 
 
 212, 374, 375. 
 Paper money, 211 ; destroyed, 212, 
 
 213. 
 Parham's ploughs, 104. 
 
492 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Paring land, 107. 
 
 Paris green, 386. 
 
 Parish allowances, see Poor Laws. 
 
 Parish church, primd facie entitled to 
 
 tithes, 338. 
 Parish farms and allotments, 408. 
 Forkes, Josiah, his mode of draining, 
 
 364. 
 Parkinson, Richard, his Huntingdon- 
 
 ehire, 244. 
 ParUament, and enclosure, 60 ; 
 
 Government controlled by, 141 ; 
 
 and Charles U., 141. 
 Parr, Dr. Samuel, attends Davy's 
 
 lectures, 216. 
 Parret, the, 232, 276. 
 Parson's Acre, 26. 
 Parson's Close, 26. 
 Parson Drove, 246. 
 Parson's Green, George II. upset near, 
 
 283. 
 Partageforci, the, 397. 
 Partnerships, agricultural, 3, 7, 20, 23, 
 
 28, 36, 38, 66, 68, 106, 132, 164. 
 Partridge, John, his Treasurie of 
 
 Commodious Concertes, 106, 422. 
 Paston Letters, the, 61. 
 Pastons, the, 61. 
 Pasture (and see Common Pastures), 
 
 separated from tillage, 3 ; restored 
 
 to tillage in Tudor times, 60, 61 ; 
 
 pasture-area in 1871 and 1901, 378 ; 
 
 improved treatment of, 384. 
 Patents, agricultural, 104 ; paucity of 
 
 under the Commonwealth, 106 ; 
 
 numerous between 1780 and 1816, 
 
 208. 
 Paulet, Mrs. of Wymondham, her 
 
 Stilton cheeses, 187. 
 " Pauls." 24. 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, chapter of, 
 
 services on their manors, 1 1. 
 Pauperism, voluntary, 329, 330 ; 
 
 pauper labour, 329. 
 Pays de Caux, the, 6. 
 " Peace and Plenty,'' a mockery, 
 
 317. 
 Peacocks, 17. 
 
 Pearce, William, his Berkshire, 234. 
 Peasant homes, 6. 
 Peasant proprietors, 396, 397 (and 
 
 see SmaU Holdings, and Land- 
 owners, small) ; demanded by the 
 
 Labourers' Union, 410. 
 Peasants' Rising, the, of 1381, 42. 
 Peck loaf, the, 460. 
 Pedigree com, 354. 
 Pedlars, 76, 284. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, and tithes, 344, 
 
 345. 
 Pell, Albert, his Reminiscences, 406. 
 
 Pennington, W., his Reflecdona on In- 
 closing Large Commons and Common 
 Fields, 303. 
 
 Peony seed, adulteration with, 19. 
 
 Pepys, Samuel, on the neglect of 
 agriculture, 105. 
 
 Peruvian guano, 366. 
 
 Peterborough Fen, 243, 244. 
 
 Petersen Separator, the, 390. 
 
 Petty, Sir William, his Essays in 
 Political Arithmetic, 143. 
 
 Petworth, Lord Egremont at, 207 ; 
 sheep-shearings at, 221. 
 
 " Philo-Anglicus," his Bread for the 
 Poor, 429. 
 
 " Philotheos Physiologus," pseudo- 
 nym of Thomtis Tryon, 430. 
 
 Pickering, Vale of, in 1787, 200, 292. 
 
 Piers Plowman, see William LangUmd. 
 
 Pigeons, 18. 
 
 Pightels, 26. 
 
 Pigs, colours of, 139 ; Leicestershire, 
 139, 168; Markham on, 139; 
 Mascall on, 139 ; Mortimer on, 139 ; 
 in 1837, 364. 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, the, 3. 
 
 Pillory, the, 19. 
 
 The Pioneers and Progress of English 
 Farming, 393 seq. 
 
 Pitt, William, his Leicestershire, 237 ; 
 his Staffordshire, 227, 294. 
 
 A Plan for relieving the Rales by 
 Cottage Acres, 298. 
 
 Plat, Sir Hugh, his Arte of setting of 
 Come, 101, 423 ; his Jewel House 
 of Art and Nature, 100, 423 ; his 
 other works, 423 ; his farm at St. 
 Alban's, 101 ; on fattening poultry, 
 106 ; mechanical sowing, 171. 
 
 " Plate-layers," 351. 
 
 Plattes, Gabriel, his Discovery of 
 Infinite Treasure, etc., 123, 426 ; his 
 other works, 425 ; on the Vale of 
 Belvoir, 136 ; his mechttnical sower, 
 104, 107, 131, 171; possible author 
 of Hartlib's Essay for Advance- 
 ment of Husbandry-Learning, 426 ; 
 his death, 107, 112. 
 
 Playfair, Lord, editor of Liebig's 
 Organic Chemistry in its applica- 
 tions to Agriculture, 366. 
 
 The Pleasant Land of France, 397. 
 
 Pleuro-pneumonia, 372, 376. 
 
 Plot, Robert, his Natural History of 
 Oxfordshire, 10, 430. 
 
 Ploughs, cumbersome, 109 ; double- 
 furrowed, 109, 131 ; in Gloucester- 
 shire, 203 ; in Middlesex, 203 ; 
 Norfolk ploughs, 202, 208; "paddle- 
 ploughs " for potatoes, 369 ; 
 Rotherham ploughs, 202, 208 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 493 
 
 parish ploughs, 199; paring 
 Pjoj'ghs. 115; SmaU's ploughs, 
 Z02, 208; steam ploughs, 369: 
 m Su^olk, 193 ; in Tudor times 
 ^ 91, 92 ; in 1837, 356, 369. 
 Plough-lands, 21. 
 
 Plough teams, manorial, 21 ; under 
 Ehzabeth, 92; in Kent under 
 Cromwell, 202. 
 Plumstead Marshes, embankment of, 
 
 115. 
 Plymley, Joseph, his Shropshire, 294. 
 Polders, 114. 
 Pole, length of the, in Hampshire and 
 
 Cheshire, 24. 
 A Political Enquiry into the Con- 
 sequences of Enclosing Waste Lands, 
 etc., 303. 
 Politics, agitation in 1888 and 1912, 
 394 ; agricultural labourers and 
 406, 411, 412 ^ included in pro- 
 gramme of Labourers' Union, 410 ; 
 landowner impoverished by the 
 State, 402; outlook in 1888 and 
 1912, 398. 
 Polo, the Polo Pony Society, 384. 
 Pomeroy, William Thomas, his Wor- 
 cestershire, 229. 
 Pontefract, liquorice grown at, 136. 
 Poor Laws, Extracts from the Infor- 
 mation received by B..M. Com- 
 missioners as to the . . . operation 
 of the Poor Laws, 330, 437 ; Report 
 on the, of 1834, 329, 437. 
 Poor Laws, the, Act of 1388, 432 • of 
 1503, 432; of 1530, 74, 432; of 
 1636, 74, 432 ; of 1547, 432, 434 • 
 of 1649, 432; of 1572, 432; of 
 1675, 432, 434 ; of 1697, 432, 434 • 
 of 1601, 433, 434 ; of 1662, 434 • 
 of 1691, 435 ; of 1722, 436, 436 : 
 of 1776, 435; of 1782, 435; of 1795 
 
 436 ; of 1796, 436 ; of 1816, 436 ; 
 of 1834, 325, 330, 349, 407, 408 
 
 437 ; of 1840, 433 ; under Richard 
 IL, 432 ; Henry VH., 431 ; Heniy 
 VIII., 74, 432 ; Edward VI., 432, 
 434 ; Elizabeth, 432 seg. ; Charles 
 II., 434 ; William and Mary, 435 ; 
 George L, 148, 435, 436 ; George 
 HL, 433, 436 seq. ; William IV. 
 437; Victoria, 433, 438; able- 
 bodied vagrants, 74, 432, 436; 
 administration of, in 1813-34, 328 ; 
 agriculturists, a serious change for, 
 432 ; allowances, Berkshire scale 
 of, 327, 436; almshouses, 435; 
 annual value, basis of Poor Rates, 
 431 ; assessment of 1834, 431 • 
 bastardy, the law of, and, 329, 437 j 
 Berkshire scale of allowances, 327, 
 
 436; Board, the Poor Law, of 
 1847, 437, 438; classification of 
 paupers, 433; collectors, 432; 
 Commission of Inquiry, the, in 
 1832, 330, 436 ; Commissioners, 
 three appointed in 1834, 437 ; 
 Committees, Select, of 1817, 436 • 
 of 1820, 1821, 1822, 1833 and 
 1836, 324, 326; Coode, 6., his 
 Report in 1861, 434 ; Correction, 
 Houses of, 432, 434, 436 ; Crown, 
 subsidies for, 431; depression of 
 1813-36, 436 ; difficulties accen- 
 tuated by increased mendicancy 
 and by industrial changes, 434 ; 
 distress made applicable to Poor 
 Rates, 433 ; Earby, Sir Anthony, 
 his case, 433 ; estimate of idle 
 vagrants, in 1605, 434; expendi- 
 ture under, in 1776, 435 ; in 1783 
 and 1815, 316, 317 ; in 1818, 317 ; 
 m 1832, 331 ; in 1837, 326, 327 ; 
 fair wage, a, 436 ; feudal tenures, 
 occasionally the origin of Poor 
 Rates, 431 ; Friendly Societies, 
 436 ; GUbert's Act, 327, 436, 437 ; 
 Guardians, 435 ; inadequacy of the 
 voluntary principle, 432; income 
 tax, a moral, 432; industrial 
 mvention and, 435; inquisition 
 of, 1334, the, 431; Justices, to 
 supervise administration, 432, 436 • 
 under Act of 1691, 435 ; labour, 
 mobility of, restricted, 434 ; labour 
 test, the, 434 ; laxity of Poor Laws 
 under George IH., 433, 435 ; lia- 
 bility, based on ability to pay, 433 ; 
 national taxes raised by local 
 rates, 431 ; origin of rates, 431 ; 
 optional charity becomes com- 
 pulsory almsgiving and finally 
 local taxation, 432 ; out-relief, 327. 
 331, 407, 408, 436 ; refused in fou^ 
 parishes, 330 ; overseers, 433, 436, 
 436; personalty, relieved from 
 rates by Act of 1840, 433 ; popu- 
 lation, growth of, and, 436 ; prices 
 rise of, in 1766-74, 436 ; in 1796-6, 
 436; railways and, 408; rates, 
 m mediaeval times, 431 ; 1782- 
 1792, 321 ; in 1812, 321 ; in 1832. 
 360 ; in 1837, 350 ; at Coggeshall 
 308; at Stroud, 311 ; parish 
 aUowances, 329 ; abolished, 331 • 
 nots in favour of, 330 ; records of 
 farms and houses, 431 ; relaxation 
 of original principles in 1795-1834 
 433 ; relief in kind, 437 ; relieving 
 officers, 437 ; removal of paupers. 
 434, 436, 436 ; rental value, the 
 measure of liability, 433; rent. 
 
494 
 
 INDEX 
 
 relieved of liability, 433 ; none to 
 be paid as out-relief, 437 ; report of 
 1834, 329, 431 ; of 1842-3, 408 ; of 
 1861, 434; Savings Banks, 436; 
 Settlement, the law of, 432, 434 
 aeq. ; in 1388, 432 ; in 1796, 436 ; 
 Speenhamland Act, the, 436 ; 
 Stanleye's Bemedy, 434 ; support 
 of the poor, distinguished from cost 
 of administration, 432 ; " Tenths 
 and Fifteenths," 431 ; tests, desti- 
 tution, 436 ; labour, 434 ; settle- 
 ment, 434 ; workhouse, 436 ; 
 abolished, 436 ; revived, 331, 408, 
 437 ; Unions, 435, 437 ; validi 
 medicantes. 74, 432, 434, 436 ; 
 voluntary pauperism, 436 ; wages 
 supplemented from the Poor Bates, 
 327, 328, 407 ; wars, of 1756-63, 
 435; of 1774-83, 436; wheat, 
 price of, 1766-64, 435; 1765-74, 
 436 ; work to be provided for able- 
 bodied poor, in 1547, 1576, 1697, 
 and 1601, 434 ; in 1782, 436. 
 
 " Poor Tom," 76. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, " among the 
 cabbages," 173 ; on " Turnip " 
 Townshend, 176. 
 
 Population, agricultural, census 
 returns of, 394, (and Appendix 
 Vn.); in 1888 and 1912, 399; 
 census of 1801 and 1811, 266 ; 
 corn-consumption of, 266, 267 ; 
 of home-grown and foreign wheat, 
 272 ; enclosure and, 60, 290 aeq. ; 
 growth of in eighteenth century, 
 266, 436 ; in 1792 and 1816, 316 ; 
 of London, 146 ; status of (King's 
 estimates), in 1688, 146 ; estimates 
 of, by Finlaison, King, Smith, 
 Kicholls, and Porter, 266 ; Malthus, 
 397. 
 
 Portbury, Lord Berkeley at, 32. 
 
 Porter, George Bichardson, a Free 
 Trader, 214, 272, 273 ; his estimate 
 of the population, 266 ; compari- 
 son between increase of population 
 and amount of home-grown wheat, 
 272 ; on importation of wheat, 
 214 ; his Progreta of the Nation, 
 214, 266, 272, 316, 317. 
 
 Portman, Lord, and tenant-right in 
 1843, 404. 
 
 Portsmouth, price of wheat at, in 
 1813, 319. 
 
 Potash, muriate of, 366. 
 
 Potatoes, failure of , in 1812, 266 ; in 
 1816, 323 ; in 1877, 376 ; potato 
 famine of 1846-6, 274, 371 ; a 
 farm crop, 104, 108, 131, 136, 219, 
 265 ; on fen land, 131 ; on open- 
 
 fields, not possible, 122 ; eaten with 
 butter and sugar, 135 ; potato 
 harvester, the, 387 ; paddle-plough 
 for, 369 ; at Holkham, 220 ; in 
 Lancashire, 194 ; in Shakespeare, 
 102 ; varieties of, 108. 
 
 " Potts," 204. 
 
 Poultry, 17, 106 ; modem develop- 
 ment of poultry farming, 383, 
 384. 
 
 Pound, the, 19. 
 
 Poverty, the problem of, in the 
 sixteenth century, 73, 74 ; (and see 
 Appendix II.). 
 
 Powell, Bobert, his Depopulaiion 
 Arraigned, 425. 
 
 Power presses, 387. 
 
 " Practice with Science," 348, 361. 
 
 Pratte, William, 99. 
 
 Prescriptive rights, non valent contra 
 rempvblicam, 400. 
 
 Preston, B., M.P., his Review of the 
 present Ruined Condition of the 
 Landed and Agricultural Interests, 
 319,323,328; bia Further Observa- 
 tions on the State of the Nation, 319, 
 323. 
 
 Preston, on the Bibble, 277. 
 
 Price, John, his Herefords, 354. 
 
 Price, Bichard, his Observations on 
 Reversionary Payments, etc., 303. 
 
 Prickly comfrey, 208. 
 
 " Triggers," 76. 
 
 Pringle, Andrew, his Westmoreland, 
 295. 
 
 Pringle, Mr., introduces drilling at 
 Coldstream, 176, 177. 
 
 Prized loaves, 460. 
 
 Proclamation, Boyal, of 1349, 41, 63. 
 
 Property Tax, the, 321 ; for 1814, 
 321. 
 
 Protection, small progress under, 370 ; 
 farmers reliance on, 349 ; led to 
 gambling in land, 371 ; can never 
 be revived so as to help corn- 
 growers, 383. 
 
 Protestants, settled in the Fens, 119. 
 
 Prussia, puts a heavy export duty on 
 com, 270. 
 
 " PseudomisiuB," 427. 
 
 Public duties of landowners, 400. 
 
 Purchase by tenant, the lesser of two 
 evils, 402 ; loans from the State 
 for, 406 ; by public bodies, tithe 
 redemption and, 403. 
 
 Purdy, Frederick, paper in the Journal 
 of the Statistical Society, for 1860, 
 470. 
 
 Purification, Feast of the, 9. 
 
 Purveyance and pre-emption, sur- 
 rendered by the Crown, 142. 
 
INDEX 
 
 495 
 
 Pusey, Philip, 369, 363 ; and tenant- 
 right, in 1847, 404, 406. 
 
 Putnam, Miss, her Enforcement of the 
 Statutes of Labourers, 42. 
 
 " Pykes," 26. 
 
 Qoantock Hills, the, in the eighteenth 
 
 century, 154. 
 Quartly, Francis, his North Devons, 
 
 354. 
 Quassia, 386. 
 Quayle, Thomas, his Chanriel Islands, 
 
 226. 
 Quinces, 136. 
 Quinton, the Vicitr of, his letter to 
 
 Magdalen College, 60. 
 Quit-rents at Berkeley, 45. 
 
 Rabbits, 18 ; Adolphus Speed on, 
 111 ; Gregory King on, 132, 146. 
 
 Babelais, 34, 98. 
 
 Rail-ways, 350 seq. ; laid by Canal 
 Companies, 361 ; the Surrey Iron 
 Rail-way, 362. 
 
 Railways, 350 ; only took goods at 
 first, 353 ; coUapse in 1846-7, 371 ; 
 development of, in America and 
 Germany, 375 ; Liverpool and 
 Manchester, 360, 363 ; London and 
 Birmingham, 360 ; Poor Rates 
 reheved by, 408 ; Railway and 
 Canal Traffic Act of 1888, 379 ; 
 railway mania, the, 371 ; rendered 
 possible the improvements of 1837- 
 74, 362 ; Stockton and Darlington, 
 350, 352, 363. 
 
 Raines, 24. 
 
 RainhiU, locomotive trials at, 363. 
 
 Raleigh, a " free-trader," 72 ; fond 
 of gardening, 101. 
 
 Ramsey, his patent machine sower, 
 104. 
 
 Ramsey monastery, 116. 
 
 RankeUlor, Mr. Hope of, 173. 
 
 Rape, inCleves, 100; 108,136. 
 
 Rape dust, 366. 
 
 Raps, 24. 
 
 Rathbome, Aaron, his Surveyor, 424. 
 
 Ray, John, his Catalogus Plantarum 
 Angliae, 134, 429 ; his Select Be- 
 mains, 160. 
 
 Raynham, 172, 173. 
 
 Rea, John, his Flora, 428. 
 
 Reade, John, his drain-pipe, 364. 
 
 Reapers, 12. 
 
 Reaping machines, first mention 
 of, 99, 131 ; the Beverley, 358 ; 
 present day, 387. 
 
 Rebecca riots, the, 282. 
 
 Records, of milk, 388, 389 ; of con- 
 dition of farm, optional, 406 ; 
 
 of farms and houses in connection 
 with Poor Rates, 431. 
 
 Rectors, lay, 340. 
 
 Rectories, 340. 
 
 Redwater, 386. 
 
 Reeve, Gabriel, appropriates Sir R. 
 Weston's Discours, 108, 429 ; on 
 turnips, 134. 
 
 Reeves, 8 ; at Berkeley, 46 ; field- 
 reeves, under Enclosure Act of 
 1773, 224 ; at Wilburton. 246. 
 
 Reformation, the, and parochial 
 organisation, 340. 
 
 Registry of land, suggested by 
 Yarranton, 131. 
 
 Regrating, 256, 264. 
 
 Reins, 24. 
 
 Remedies, in Stewart times, 111, 112. 
 
 Remnant, Richard, his Discourse on 
 Bees, 426. 
 
 Rent, 65; in 1806 and 1814, 324; 
 in 1850, 371; in 1870, 375; in 
 1880-4, 377 ; exorbitant, 69, 70, 71, 
 73 ; Locke on, 213 ; readjustment 
 of in 1836, 326 ; reductions of, in 
 1814-16, 324; Ricardo on, 210: 
 payment of, in produce, 17, 18 ; 
 and the price of com, 210 ; and 
 tenant-right, 406. 
 
 Report on the Cattle Plague, 1865-7, 
 372. 
 
 Reports to Board of Agriculture, 284, 
 292, 306, 370 ; Eastern and North- 
 eastern district, 238 seq., 292 ; the 
 Fen district, 243 seq. ; Marshall's 
 abstract of, 307 ; North and North- 
 western district, 226 stq., 294 ; 
 South-eastern and Midland district, 
 234 seq., 293 ; on tithes in kind, 
 341 ; on wages, 313 ; West Mid- 
 land and South-western district, 
 228 seq., 294 ; (and see under each 
 county). 
 
 Restoration, the, distribution of land 
 at, 140 ; fiscal changes at, 141, 142. 
 
 Reyce, Robert, his Breviary of Suffolk, 
 192, 424 ; on " milchkine," 193. 
 
 Rham, Rev. William Lewis, 360. 
 
 Ricardo, David, on rent and the 
 price of com, 210. 
 
 Rice, 265. 
 
 Richard II., legislates against beggars, 
 75 ; horse-breeding under, 181. 
 
 Richard III., rurtd exodus under, 60. 
 
 Richardson, W., On Famine and the 
 Poor Laws, 320. 
 
 " Richmond Commission, the," (1879- 
 1882), 377, 378, 380, 410. 
 
 Ricks, 94. 
 
 Rigby, Dr. Edward, his Holkham and 
 its AgricuUure, 217. 
 
496 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rigg, Mr. J. M., on Fitzherbert, 90. 
 
 Bigs, 24. 
 
 Rinderpest, the, 372. 
 
 Riots, the " Rebecca," 282 ; of 1830- 
 31, 325, 330. 
 
 Ripple, 229. 
 
 Roads (and see Highways and Turn- 
 pike), 132 ; in Cambridgeshire, 
 244; in Devonshire, 204 ; in Essex, 
 192; in Hertfordshire, 190; in Ire- 
 land, 286 ; in Lancashire, 203 ; in 
 Leicestershire, 204 ; in Middlesex, 
 190; at Newport, 203 ; in Norfolk, 
 
 279 ; in the North, 203 ; in Oxford- 
 shire, 204; in Scotland, 286; in 
 Suffolk, 192 ; in the Weald of Kent, 
 281 ; in Wiltshire, 233 ; by-roads, 
 
 280 ; Commissioners in Scotland, 
 286 ; from Glasgow to Carlisle, 287; 
 the Great North Road, 282 ; from 
 Shrewsbury to Bangor, 284 ; to 
 Holyhead, 287 ; repair of, 285 ; a 
 religious duty, 280 ; road-rate in 
 1812, 321 ; Roman roads, 279 ; 
 under the manorial system, 280, 
 
 281 ; in Tudor times, 281 ; under 
 Charles II., 283 ; tinder George II., 
 283 ; in 1770, 203 ; at beginning of 
 the nineteenth century, 286. 
 
 Robinson, Ralph, shepherd to George 
 in. at Windsor, 196. 
 
 Robson, James, of Belford, his 
 Cheviots, 354. 
 
 Robynson, Ralph, translator of 
 Utopia, 420. 
 
 " Rocket, the," 353. 
 
 Rockinghajn, Lord, 207. 
 
 Rodomel, 18. 
 
 Rogation week, 6. 
 
 Rogers, Thorold, his Six Centuries of 
 Work and Wages, 14. 
 
 Rogues and vagabonds, 74, 76. 
 
 RoUright, Fowler at, 187. 
 
 Roman Catholicism, and agrarian dis- 
 content, 68. 
 
 Romney Marsh (sheep), 178. 
 
 Rooks, 93. 
 
 Roses, Wars of the, 48, 60, 57, 76. 
 
 Rossendale, 163. 
 
 Roston Common, 227. 
 
 Rot, the, 15 ; in 1736, 149 ; in 1830- 
 31, 325 ; in 1879, 376 ; in Bedford- 
 shu'e, 241 ; in Cambridgeshire, 
 242 ; in Cumberland, 227 ; in 
 Gloucestershire, 230 ; in Oxford- 
 shire, 235, 236 ; on commons, 128, 
 166 ; remedies for, HartUb's, 111 ; 
 Thomas Tryon's, 134. 
 
 Rothamsted, 172, 366, 383, 386. 
 
 Rothes, Earl of, grows turnips in 
 1716, 160. 
 
 Rothschild, Lord, his milking herds, 
 389. 
 
 Roundsmen, 329. 
 
 Rous, John (14:11-91), Historia Begum 
 Angliae, 60, 66. 
 
 Roy, William, his Rede me and be nott 
 Wrothe, 63. 
 
 Royal Agricultural Society, the, 369 
 seq. ; its foundation, aims and 
 methods, 359 ; its JoumtU, 369, 
 370 ; its show at Gloucester in 
 1863, 369 ; at Oxford in 1839, 369. 
 
 Royal Agricultural Benevolent Insti- 
 tution, the, 394. . 
 
 Royal Chemical Society, the, 366. 
 
 Royal Society, the, 131. 
 
 Rudge, Thomas, his OUmcestershire, 
 231, 294, 311. 
 
 RufBer, the, 76. 
 
 RiiBcam, Richard, editor of Leonard 
 Mascall, 136, 421. 
 
 Rusden, Moses, his Further Discovery 
 of Bees, 430. 
 
 Rush-bearings, 6. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, and tithes, 344, 
 345. 
 
 Russia, Emperor of, at Holkham, 
 221 ; hostiUty of, in 1800, 270. 
 
 Russo-Turkish War, the, in 1877, 376. 
 
 Rye, sown with wheat, 8, 93. 
 
 Ryeland wool, 80, 98, 178. 
 
 S. A., author of The Husbandman 
 Fanner and Orasier'a Compleat 
 Instructor, 430. 
 
 S. W., gentleman, author of The Com- 
 pendious Examination, 70, 420. 
 
 Sables, 112. 
 
 Saffron, 108, 136, 312. 
 
 Sainfoin, 110, 136,219. 
 
 Salads, 102. 
 
 Sale of Food and Drugs Act, the, 
 of 1899, 381. 
 
 Salisbury Plain, 1. 
 
 Salt, 366. 
 
 Saltpetre, 366. 
 
 Sand, sea, 10, 97, 109. 
 
 Sandringham, Royal Farm at, 360. 
 
 Sandwich, port of, 280 ; salt works at, 
 309. 
 
 Sandys, Sir William, 276. 
 
 Sankey Brook Canal, the, 277. 
 
 Sarclers, 11. 
 
 Savings Banks, 436. 
 
 Sawbridgeworth, 384. 
 
 Saxmundham, hops at, 193. 
 
 Scab, the, 16, 96, 166. 
 
 Scarifiers, 387. 
 
 Schools and school hours, 391. 
 
 Science, its benefits to agriculture, 
 385 seq. 
 
INDEX 
 
 4«7 
 
 Scot, Begiiiald, his H<yp Qarden, 92, 
 99, 421. 
 
 Scott, Sir W., his HeaH of Midlothian, 
 173. 
 
 Scotland, Act of Union, and weights 
 and measures, 208 ; cattle of, 180 ; 
 duty-free com in, 261 ; General 
 Enclosure Act for (1695), 160; 
 milk records in, 389 ; roads in 
 1803, 286; the "seven ill years," 
 261. 
 
 Scottish farmers in 1700, 159, 160, 
 161 ; Jethro TuU and, 172, 173. 
 
 Scragg, Thomas, his drain-pipe 
 machine, 364. 
 
 Scrope, Poulett, on "lynches," 2; 
 his History o] Caalle Combe, 43. 
 
 Sea power, and the Com Laws, 257, 
 258. 
 
 Sedgmoor, 154, 232 ; draining, 233. 
 
 Seebohm, on " lynches," 2 ; on 
 village conunonities, 4. 
 
 " Selions," 24. 
 
 Senesch^, 6, 
 
 Senesehaucie, 13, 16, 419. 
 
 Separators, 389. 
 
 Serfs, 22. 
 
 Service of villeins, 22. 
 
 Settled Lands Act, the (1882), 379. 
 
 Settlement, Law of, see Poor Laws. 
 
 Sevem, the, 276. 
 
 Sexton's Mead, 26. 
 
 Sha, J., his Plaine and Easie Demon- 
 strations, etc., 427. 
 
 Shaftesbury, industries at, 312. 
 
 Shakespeare, horses in, 181, 182 ; his 
 types of vagabonds, 76 ; an open- 
 field tithe-owner, 68. 
 
 Shalboum, Jethro Tull at, 170. 
 
 Shalloon, 309. 
 
 Shawe's patent for manuring land 
 (1636), 104. 
 
 Sheep, 16 ; under George lU., 57 ; 
 in 1837, 354; in 1874. 373; in 
 Bedfordshire, 241 ; in Huntingdon- 
 shire, 238 ; in Lmcohishire, 238 ; 
 in Worcestershire, 229 ; Bakewell's 
 experiments with, 186 ; lets his 
 rams, 186 ; carriers of manure, 27 ; 
 on commons, 27, 128, 150 ; dead- 
 weight of, 98 ; ewes milked in 
 Northumberland, 202 ; fanciful 
 points in, 179 ; improvements in 
 the eighteenth century, 177 seq. ; 
 Markh^m on, 138 ; Mascall on, 
 138; method of folding in Flanders, 
 110; Mortimer on, 138; under 
 open-field system, 96 ; shearings 
 at Holkham, 220 seq. ; at Wobum, 
 221 ; shearing-machines, 387 ; vari- 
 eties of, 138, 139, 178, 372. 
 
 Sheffield, 277; steel industry at. 310. 
 
 Sheffield, Lord, establishes an Agri- 
 cultural Society at Lewes, 209. 
 
 Shepherd, qualifications of, 16. 
 
 Sbepton Mallet, woollen industry at, 
 311. 
 
 Sherwood Forest, 163. 
 
 Shipton-on-the-Stour, 277. 
 
 Shire horses, 365. 
 
 Shirley, Thomas, translator of Coch- 
 learia Curiosa, 429. 
 
 Shirreff, Patrick, and pedigree com, 
 364. 
 
 Shoddy as manure, 366. 
 
 Shorthom cattle, 180, 187, 364. 
 
 Shorthorn Society, the, 373. 
 
 Shots, 24. 
 
 Shrewsbury, turnpikes on the Bangor 
 road, 284 ; industries at, 310. 
 
 Shrift districts, 336. 
 
 Shropshire, Report on (Bisbton). 
 228; (Plymley), 294; industries 
 in. 310. 
 
 Silk, industry in Berkshire, 310 ; in 
 Coventry, 310. 
 
 Silk-worms, 112. 
 
 Silverdale sheep (Lancashire), 178. 
 
 Sinclair, Sir John, President of the 
 Board of Agriculture, 196 ; his 
 notes on dead-weight of stock in 
 1796, 188; his Address to the 
 Society for the Improvement of 
 British Wool, 364 ; his State of the 
 Country in December, 1816, 320. 
 
 Single tax, the, 399, 403, 417. 
 
 Site values, 399. 
 
 Skeat, Prof. W. W., on Fitzherbert, 
 90, 420 ; on tramways, 361. 
 
 Skelton, John, his BUinour Bumming, 
 98. 
 
 Skye, crofters in (1760), 28. 
 
 Slate clubs, 414. 
 
 Slater, Dr. Gilbert, his English 
 Peasantry and the Enclosure of 
 Common Fields, 164. 
 
 Sleaford, 163. 
 
 Small, James, of BUckadder Mount, 
 his ploughs, 202. 208. 
 
 Small holdings (and see Small Itand- 
 owners), 396; and tenant-right, 
 406; the Small Holdings Act 
 criticised, 415. 
 
 Smith, Adam, and the Com Laws, 
 272 ; and the price of wheat (1453- 
 1497), 448. 
 
 Smith, Charles, his Tracts on the Com 
 Trade and Com Laws, 266 ; esti- 
 mate of population. 266. 
 
 Smith, James, of Deanston. 363 ; his 
 Remarks oh Thorough Draining and 
 Deep Ploughing, 364. 
 
 2l 
 
498 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Smith, John, his England's Improve- 
 ment Revived, 420 ; possibly the 
 author of Profit and Pleasure 
 VnUed, 429. 
 Smith, Sir Thomas, his De Republica 
 
 Anglorum, 73, 85. 
 Smithfleld Club, the, 188. 
 Smithaeld Market, 188, 194. 
 Smithsham, 26, 30. 
 Smut, in wheat, 109 ; in barley, 
 
 386. 
 Smyth, John, of Nibley, his Lives of 
 
 the Berkdeys, 32, 45. 
 Snaggreet, 109. 
 SnailweU, 245. 
 
 Sneyds, the scythe of the, 32. 
 Soap, soft, 386. 
 
 Social gradations of the village in 
 former times, 412 ; cannot be re- 
 placed, 416. 
 Socialistic legislation, 382. 
 Societies, Bath and West of England, 
 209 ; Encouragement of Arts, 
 Manufactures and Conunerce, 209, 
 219 ; Farmers' Qub, the, 209 ; 
 Highland Society, the, 209 ; Im- 
 provers in the JBjiowledge of Agri- 
 cultvire, 173, 209 ; Smithfleld CTub, 
 the, 209 ; Society for bettering the 
 Condition and Increasing the Com- 
 forts of the Poor (1796), 408; 
 numerous agricultural societies in 
 the provinces, 209 ; numerous live- 
 stock societies of late years, 373, 
 384. 
 Soda, nitrate of, 366. 
 Soil, character of in various districts, 
 136 ; affects enclosure, 167 ; 
 Davy's lecture on, 217 ; science 
 applied to, 385 ; virgin, I. 
 •' Soiling," 110. 
 
 Soke of Peterborough, the, 244. 
 Solar, the, 6. 
 Soldiers, disbanded, 76. 
 Somer, John, 99. 
 Somerset, Protector, 69. 
 Somersetshire, Report on (Billings- 
 ley), 232, 248, 294 ; balloting in, 
 26; fardels, 22; open-fields, 23; 
 industries in, 311. 
 Soot. 10, 95, 110, 366. 
 Southampton (leknield Street), 279. 
 Southeme, Eckaund, his Ordering of 
 
 Bess, 106, 423. 
 Southwell, out-door relief refused at, 
 
 330. 
 Specialisation, in live-stock, 364. 
 " Specimen," Jethro Tull's, 169. 
 Speculation, in com, 266, 273 ; in 
 land, 57 ; under the Tudors, 58 ; 
 in 1870. 375. 
 
 Speed, Adolphus, bis Adomi oM of 
 
 Eden, 111, 427. 
 Speenhamland Act, the, 436. 
 Spelman, Sir Henry, onlay rectors, 340. 
 Spilsby, 163. 
 
 Sprigge, Joshua, of Banbury, 124. 
 Spurn Point, 163. 
 Stafford, WaUam (1554-1612), 70. 
 Staffordshire, Report on (Pitt), 227, 
 294 ; industries in, 310, 311 ; land- 
 owners in, under Elizabeth, 85. 
 Stage-coaches and stage-waggons, 
 
 282. 
 Stamford, sheep at, 239. 
 " Standing " house, at Berkeley, 45. 
 Standish, Arthur, 69 ; The Commons 
 Complaint, 94, 424 ; on woodlands, 
 106 ; his New Directions, etc., 424. 
 Stanley, his Remedy, 434. 
 Starch, 264, 264. 
 Starkey's Dialogue (1636), 59. 
 " Statesmen," in Westmoreland, 295. 
 Statistics of Agriculture, a much felt 
 
 want, 361. 
 Statute, the, of Apprentices (1663), 
 87 ; of Labourers (1349), 41, 61 ; 
 of Merton, 38, 72 ; of Westminster, 
 38, 72. 
 Statute labour, on the roads, under 
 the Tudors, 282 ; at beginning of 
 the nineteenth century, 286, 360 ; 
 abolished in Ireland, 286 ; in 
 England, 288. 
 Steam, the advent of, 362, 369; 
 cultivators, etc., 369 ; diggers, 387. 
 Steel springs on carriages, 283. 
 Stephens, Henry, 361. 
 Stephenson, George, 362. 
 Stevenson, Matthew, his Twelve 
 
 Moneths, 427. 
 Stevenson, William, his Dorsetshire, 
 
 233. 
 Stillingfleet, Benjamin, his Observa- 
 tions on Qrasses, 219. 
 Stilton, and Stilton Cheeses, 187 ; its 
 
 toll-bar, 282. 
 Stilt-walking in the Fens, 115. 
 Stinted pastures, 36, 37, 168, 188. 
 Stirling, Mrs. A. M. W., her Coke of 
 
 Norfolk and his Friends, 217. 
 Stitches, 24. 
 
 Stock, breeding, 176 seq. ; for the 
 butcher, 186 ; Thomas Coke and, 
 219 ; dead-weight of in 1710 and 
 1795, 188 ; estimate of, in England 
 and Wales, in 1688, 466 ; in 1696, 
 146 ; in 1837, 354 seq. ; in 1850, 
 371 ; in 1866-1911, 466, 467 ; in- 
 breeding of, 385 ; Mendelism, 385 ; 
 pedigree stock in 1837, 354, 372 ; 
 prices of in 1886 and 1890, 378. 
 
INDEX 
 
 499 
 
 Stock and Land System, the, 42, 49. 
 Stocks, the, 19. 
 Stoguisey, open-fields at, 23. 
 Stoke, the, 116. 
 
 Stone, Thomas, his Bedfordshire, 241 ; 
 
 his Htmtmgdonahire, 238, 244 ; his 
 
 Uncolnahire, 238, 246, 246, 247 ; 
 
 his SvggesUona, etc., 224, 300, 303. 
 
 Stores, 17. 
 
 Stotts, 12. 
 
 Stourbridge fair, 276. 
 Strangehopes, Samuel, his Book of 
 
 Knowledge, 428. 
 Stratford-on-Avon, 68. 
 Stretham, common rights at, 27. 
 Strikes, 411. 
 Strips, 24. 
 
 Stroud, broad-cloth industry at, 311. 
 Stubbes, Philip, his Anatomy of 
 
 Abuses, 62. 
 Suez Canal, the, 376. 
 Sufiolk, Keport on (Young), 293: 
 Breviary of Suffolk, 192 ; cheese, 
 193 ; clover in, 134 ; executions in, 
 1814-16, 323; hops in, 92; in- 
 dustries in, 309; Suffolk Duns, 
 180, 193; Sufiolk Punches, 193, 
 356. 
 Sufiolk, the Clountess of (George II.), 
 
 173. 
 " Sufiolk Gentleman, A," his Letter to 
 
 Sir T. C. Bunbury, Bart., 292. 
 Sunbeams to tell the time, 367. 
 Superphosphates, 366, 367. 
 Si^eet, Richc^, translator of 
 L' Agriculture et Maison Bustique, 
 422. 
 Surrender of holdings, voluntary, 53. 
 Surrey, industries in, 309. 
 " Surveyors and orderers," 281, 285, 
 
 286. 
 Sussex, industries in, 309. 
 Sussex Herd-book Society, the, 373. 
 Sutton, Sir Bichard Weston's estates 
 
 at, 107. 
 S. W., stamp on loaves, 450. 
 Swafiiuun, iUegitimate children on the 
 
 parish at, 329. 
 Swans, 17. 
 Swedes, 208, 219. 
 Swift, Dean, his letters to Boling- 
 
 broke, 173. 
 Swine, of the Middle Ages, 16 ; to be 
 ringed on commons, 27 (and see 
 Pigs). 
 Swine-fever, 386. 
 " Swing, Captain," 326. 
 Switzer, St^hen, on drain-pipes, 364. 
 
 Tamworth, linen industry at, 310. 
 Tarello, Camillo, 89. 
 
 Tares, sown on turnip fallows, 191. 
 Taunton, a port, 276 ; the Vale of, 
 
 135 ; wooUen industry at, 311. 
 Taxation, the new, 401, 402, 417 ; 
 
 loctd, at the present day, 404. 
 Taylor, Silvanus, his Common Oood, 
 or the Im/provemxnt of Comnums, etc. , 
 125 seq., 426. 
 Tea, in early nineteenth century, 348. 
 Teasels, in Essex, 193, 312. 
 Telford, Thomas, 278, 284, 286, 287 ; 
 
 the Telford pavement, 287. 
 Temple, Sir William, on marriages 
 
 " into the city," 144. 
 Tentmcies-at-will, in Berks, Notts, 
 
 and Derbyshire, 200. 
 Tenant-farmers, rise of, 48 ; bank- 
 ruptcies of, 322, 323 ; uncertain 
 position of, 404 ; better situated 
 now than in 1888, 403, 404. 
 Tenants (manorial), 20. 
 Tenant-right, 404 »eg. ; Act of, 1875, 
 379, 405 ; beginnings of, 113, 132, 
 201, 221, 325; market-gardeners 
 and, 381 ; optional at first, 405 ; 
 proposal to extend compensation, 
 406. 
 Tenement houses, under Elizabeth, 
 
 87. 
 " Tenths and fifteenths," 431. 
 " Terramania," 292. 
 Tetbury, Lord Berkeley at, 31. 
 Tewkesbury, 277 ; stocking-freume 
 
 industry at, 311 ; Vale of, 230. 
 Theft, in Tudor times, 274. 
 Theorist land-reformers, 394, 417. 
 Thomey, fen-lwids at, 245 ; des- 
 cribed by WilUam of Malmesbury, 
 116; WtJloon settlement at, 116. 
 Thomhill, Cooper, of the Bell Inn at 
 
 Stilton, 187. 
 " Thorow " drainage in Essex, 193. 
 " Three acres and a cow," in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies, 123, 216. 
 Threshing in 1837, 367 ; threshing- 
 machines, 368 ; the only winter 
 emploj^ment under the open-field 
 system, 300. 
 Till, the, 319. 
 Tinkards, 76. 
 Tinker's Field, 26. 
 Tiptree Hall, Mr. Mechi at, 372. 
 Tithes, Acts of Parliament ; the 
 Barren Lands Act, 343 ; Tithe 
 Commutation Act of 1836, 326, 332, 
 340, 343, 344, 345, 350; Tithe 
 Bent-Charge Beoovery Act of 1891, 
 345 ; agreement as to, conditions 
 of, 344 ; tTiTiiia.1 value of, in 1836, 
 340; appropriators, 339, 340; 
 
500 
 
 tNDfEX 
 
 Biuren Lands Act, the, 843 ; based 
 upon townships, 334 ; clerical 
 tithe-owners in 1912, 402 ; collec- 
 tion of. 342; in 1793-1816, 467 «e9.; 
 CommissioneTS, 344 ; commuta- 
 tion, by composition, 342 ; com- 
 pulsory, 344 ; by valuation, 342 ; 
 voluntaiy, 344 ; conditions of 
 agreement as to, 344 ; consecration 
 secures, 337 ; corn-rents substi- 
 tuted for, 342, 344 ; custom, in- 
 fluence of, 338, 339 ; customary, 
 333 ; Danish invasion and, 334 ; 
 deductions from, 343 ; Edgar, 
 King, makes them a legal liabihty, 
 336 ; enclosure resist^ by tithe- 
 owners, 168 ; enquiry held by 
 Commissioners, 344 ; European 
 countries, in, 333 ; ezconununica- 
 tion for non-payment of, 336 ; 
 extinction of by allotments, 262, 
 342 ; by enclosure, 262 ; free-will 
 offerings, acted upon, 336 ; great 
 or smul, 333 ; grievance, the real, 
 341 ; luBtory of, 332 aeg. ; im- 
 propriators, 339, 340 ; incidence of, 
 under old law, 332 ; on produce, 
 the real grievance, 341 ; increase 
 of before 1812, 321 ; kind, payment 
 in, 341, 343 ; landlords and, 340, 
 341 ; landowners made liable for, 
 346, 379 ; legal liability, created by- 
 King Edgar, 336 ; confirmed by his 
 successors, 337 ; local tithes 
 granted to distant religious houses, 
 338 ; machinery of tithe com- 
 mutation of modem times, 344, 346; 
 modusee, 342 ; monastic institu- 
 tions and, 333 seq. ; moral duty, a, 
 333 ; parochial endowments, 334, 
 336, 337 ; payment of, to any 
 ecclesiastical body, 338 ; predial, 
 mixed or personal, 332 ; recovery 
 of, 346 ; rectorial and vicarial, 339 ; 
 redemption, experiment suggested 
 instead of church disendowment, 
 402, 463 ; Reformation does not 
 affect, 340 ; tithe bams, 342 ; 
 tithe rent charges, 340, 342, 344, 
 346; in 1877, 376; tithe-owners 
 resist enclosure, 168 ; townships, 
 basis upon, 334 ; vicarial, 339. 
 
 de TocqueviUe, on Arthur Young's 
 Franee, 196. 
 
 Tomkins, Benjamin, his Herefords, 
 364. 
 
 Todke, Thomas, his Hittory of Prices, 
 969, 273, 314; draws up the 
 merohants' petition, 273. 
 
 TDttenham, 237. 
 
 Townley, Sir John, 63. 
 
 Towns, migrations into, 63, 60 ; 
 attractions of, for the agriciiltural 
 labourer, 416. 
 Townshend, Lord, 32, 90, 149, 169, 
 172 ; his great success, 176, 176, 
 177, 188, 194 ; " Turnip " Towns- 
 hend, 174 ; his political career, 173. 
 Townships, tithe organisation based 
 
 upon, 334. 
 Toynbee, Arnold, his Induatrial 
 
 BevoliUion, 144. 
 Trade, Royal Commission on Depres- 
 sion of (1886), 378. 
 Trade, Board of, Report on Agri- 
 cultural Wages, 314. 
 Trade Guilds, 3, 49, 214. 
 Trading Companies, 79. 
 Trams and tramways, 361 ; meaning 
 
 of the word, 361. 
 Transport of com, 261, 270, 271. 
 A Treatise of Wool and Cattle : in a 
 
 Letter written to a Friend, etc., 430. 
 Trefoil, " or Burgundiaii grass," 
 
 commended by Oooge, 100. 
 Trent, the, 276, 278. 
 de Tresaguet, Pierre, 286. 
 Trigge, Francis, his Humble Petition 
 
 of two Sisters, 63, 86, 424. 
 Tring fair, 191. 
 Trows, 276. 
 
 Tryon, Thomas, a "book-farmer," 
 133 ; his Cotiraryman's Companion, 
 134, 430. 
 Tuberculosis, 386. 
 Tucker. Josiah, his Four Tracts, etc., 
 
 303. 
 Tuke, John, his North Riding of York- 
 shire, 226, 296. 
 TuU, Jethro, his story, 169, 170 : 176, 
 177. 188 ; on growing clover, 134 ; 
 his crops, 172 ; his Drill, 170 seq. ; 
 hoeing, 172 ; his Horse Houghing 
 Husbandry, 169 ; plants sainfoin, 
 170 ; his services to agriculture, 
 172 ; the Tullian System, 172 seq. ; 
 on turnips, 136, 149 ; followed by 
 Townshend, 174 ; adopts Vineyard 
 principles, 171. 
 Turner, George, his Oloucestershire, 
 
 230. 
 Turner, George, his North Devons, 
 
 364. 
 Turner, William, the herbalist, on 
 turnips, 100 ; his LibeUus de Be 
 Herbaria Novua, 420. 
 Turnips, 100 ; not possible on open- 
 fields, 122 ; Adolphus Speed on, 
 111; ben^ts of, 136; in the 
 church-yard, 208 ; diseases of, 386 ; 
 in the Eastern Coimties, in 1837, 
 348 ; field-cultivation of, 104, 136, 
 
Index 
 
 301 
 
 166, 202 : Flemish oaltivation of, 
 107 ; inHertfonUhire, 191 Jethro 
 TuU and, 172 ; opposition to, 134, 
 202 ; grown by the Earl of Bothes 
 in 1716, 160 ; in Shakespeare, 102 ; 
 in Suffolk, 193 ; Townshend and, 
 174 ; turnip weed tuid tnmip fly, 
 386. 
 
 Turnpike Acts, of 1728, 282 ; between 
 1760 and 1774, 284 ; between 1785 
 and 1800, 284 ; multiplication of, 
 284, 287. 
 
 Turnpike Trusts, 203, 282, 287, 360 ; 
 difficulties of, 288 ; extinction of, 
 288 ; the Home Office and, 288 ; 
 the Rebecca Biots, 282. 
 
 Tusser, Thomas, 9, 10, 14, 69, 106, 
 107, 112. 123, 124, 139, 166, 347 ; 
 on turnips, 100 ; his death, 107 ; 
 his Five Hundred PoitUa, etc., 66, 87, 
 89, 91, 92, 93 seq., 421. 
 
 Twemlow, F. R., The Twemlowa, 71. 
 
 " Two-penny," Bakewell's bull, 184. 
 
 "Two-poimder,"BakeweIl'sram, 184. 
 
 TyndsJe, William, 62. 
 
 TJley, out-door relief refused at, 330. 
 
 Undeveloped land, duty on, 399, 416. 
 
 Unearned increment, in the seven- 
 teenth century, 71. 
 
 UniiHiB, see Poor Lanjos. 
 
 " Upright man," the, 76. 
 
 Utopia, 61, 63, 76. 
 
 Utrecht, the Peace of, turnips before, 
 136. 
 
 Uxbridge Road, the, in 1797, 190. 
 
 Vagrants, 74, 76. 
 Valentine's Day, St., 9. 
 Valuation, the, now in progress, 418. 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John, Ins Jovmey to 
 
 London, 283. 
 Vancouver, Charles, his Cambridge- 
 
 shire, 242, 244, 247 ; his Hampshire, 
 
 237, 293. 
 Vanderdelf, Cornelius, 116. 
 Varro, 33, 99, 419. 
 Vaughan, Rowland, on irrigation, 
 
 W& ; his suggestion adopted by 
 
 Sir R. Weston, 107 ; his Water 
 
 Workes, 424. 
 de la Vega, G., 104. 
 Vegetables, in Tudor times, 101, 102. 
 Vermuyden, Sir Cornelius, attacked 
 
 by Bnirell, 117; his Discourse 
 
 touching the Draining of the Gh-eat 
 
 Fennes, 116, 117, 426 ; the Bedford 
 
 Level, 117. 
 Veterinary science, 386. 
 Via, the Roman, 279. 
 VicaiB, 340. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, agriculture during 
 
 the early years of her reign, 346 
 
 seg. ; and the Boyal Agricultural 
 
 Society, 369. 
 Villa, the Boman, 4. 
 Village communities, 3 seq. 
 Village farms, 6, 29, 38, 66, 71, 297 ; 
 
 Arthur Young on, 199 ; dis- 
 
 appeeu'ance of, 407. 
 Villeins (and see Bondmen), 21, 22, 
 
 23, 62, 63 ; abolition of, 47. 
 Vineyards, 18, 112 ; Jethro Tull and, 
 
 171. 
 Virgates, 21, 22. 
 Voelcker, 366. 
 
 Voluntary pauperism, 329, 436. 
 " Vox paipuli vox Dei " (Ballad), 67. 
 
 W. stamp on loaves, 460. 
 
 Wadesmill, toll-bar at, 282. 
 
 Wages, 40, 41, 313, 314; in the 
 eighteenth century, 148, 262 ; in 
 1812, 321; in 1813, 327; from 
 1815 onward, 407 ; in various years 
 between 1768 and 1910, 468 seg. ; 
 not entirely represented by weekly 
 cash, 313, 407 ; Abstract of Returns 
 prepared by order of the Select Com- 
 mittee on Labourers' Wages, 1826, 
 470 ; Berkshire, scale of, 327 ; 
 Board of Trade Report on (1900), 
 314, 470 ; com, payable in, 61 ; 
 controlled by Justices of the Peace, 
 64, 86, 87 ; in England (1768-1910), 
 468 «e9.; in Essex, 314, 468; 
 extra allowances, 313, 407, 468; 
 TTimiTniiTTi wages. Under Elizabeth, 
 87; under James I., 104; re- 
 duction of, 328 ; supplemented 
 from the rates, 327, 407 ; in 
 Warwickshire, 314, 469 ; Returns of 
 the Average rate of Weekly Earnings 
 of AgricuUwral Lahowrers, 1861, 
 1869, 1870, 1871, 1873, 470; R&poH 
 of the Royal Commission on Labour, 
 1891-94, 470 ; Reports from Assist- 
 ant Commissioners to the Royal 
 Commission on Agriculture, 1882, 
 470. 
 
 Wakefield, clothing trade at, 277. 
 
 Wales, William, his Inquiry into the 
 Present State of PopiUation in 
 England and Wales, 299. 
 
 Wales, disendowment of the Church, 
 in, 402, 403. 
 
 Walker, D., his Hertfordshire, 191, 
 238. 
 
 Wallinby, Oliver, see William Ley- 
 bourn. 
 
 Wallingford, 170. 
 
 Walloon settlement at Thomey, 116. 
 
502 
 
 INDEX 
 
 WaUs, 24. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Bobert, a fanner, 173. 
 
 Walsinghain, Sir FrEmcis, fond of 
 gardens, 101. 
 
 Walter of Henley, on butter weights, 
 14 ; on rot in sheep, 15 ; on size of 
 the ploughlonds, 21 ; on swine, 17 ; 
 on thistles, 1 1 ; on winter-keep, 13 ; 
 his work on Farming, 33, 90, 419. 
 
 Walton-on-Thames, 120. 
 
 Wondle, the, mills on, 309, 362. 
 
 Ww>ping Mush, drained by Cornelius 
 Vanderdelf, 116. 
 
 Ware, a port, 276. 
 
 Waiping, introduced from Italy, 114. 
 
 de la Warr, Countess, edits The 
 English Huaunfe, 422. 
 
 Warwick, worsted industry at, 310. 
 
 Warwickshire, Report on (Wedge), 
 236, 296, 314; (Murray), 236; 
 industries in, 310, 311 ; wages in, 
 314. 
 
 Washboumes, sheaf of the, 32. 
 
 " WasteU." 449. 
 
 Wastes (and see Commons and En- 
 closure), 38, 72, 110 ; in eighteenth 
 century, 152 ; near London, 154 ; 
 tithes and, 343 ; on Hounslow 
 Heath, 122; in the Iforthem 
 Counties, 163 ; in Devonshire, 
 Cornwall, and Wales, 154 ; in the 
 West Biding, 226 ; near London, 
 164. 
 
 Wat Tyler, 46. 
 
 Water-carriage, 275 seq. 
 
 Watling Street, 279. 
 
 Watney, Dr., his milking-herds, 389. 
 
 Watson, Bishop, on Westmoreland, 
 163. 
 
 Watt, James, 181, 206. 
 
 Weather, the, great heat in 1767, 
 262 ; the price of com and, 266 ; 
 winters of 1708-9, 1739-40, 1794-6, 
 262 ; 1874 onward, 376 ; 1891-4, 
 380. 
 
 Weaver, the, 276. 
 
 Webb, Jonas of Babraham, his South- 
 downs, 364. 
 
 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, on the 
 Assize of Bread, 448. 
 
 Webb, William, quoted in King's 
 VaU Boyal, 83. 
 
 Webster, Mr., of Canley, his cattle, 
 187. 
 
 Wedge, John, his Warwickshire, 236, 
 296. 
 
 Wedge, Thomas, his Cheshire, 227. 
 
 Weeds, and Weeding, 11, 94, 199, 
 386. 
 
 The WeeWy MiseeUany for the Im- 
 provement oj Husbamdry, 364. 
 
 Weights and measures, uniformity 
 recommended, 208. 
 
 Welcombe, enclosure at, in 1614, 67, 
 68. 
 
 Weld, 136. 
 
 WeUand, the, 116,276. 
 
 Wellesboume, Agricultural Labourers' 
 Union founded at, 410. 
 
 Wellingborough, lace industry at, 
 310. 
 
 Wellington (Somersetshire), woollen 
 industry at, 311. 
 
 Wells, export of com from, in eigh- 
 teenth century, 194 ; fair at, 31. 
 
 Wells, Samuel, his History of the Bed- 
 ford Level, 116. 
 
 Welshpool, navigation at, 276 ; 
 pastures at, 136. 
 
 Welwyn, parish allowances stopped 
 at, 330. 
 
 Wendover, 234. 
 
 Wentwork, Lord Rockingham at, 207. 
 
 West of England Bank, failure of the, 
 375. 
 
 Westbury, common pastures at, 234. 
 
 Westem, Mr. Charles C, M.P., his 
 Speech on 7 Mcarcii, 1816, 319. 
 
 Westmoreland, Report on (Pringle), 
 296. 
 
 Weston, Sir Richard, 90 ; advocate 
 of tenant-right, 113; on turnips, 
 134 ; canalizes the Wey, 107, 276 ; 
 on Su: Hugh Plat, 100, 107, 108 ; 
 his Discours of the Husbandrie used 
 in Brabant and Flanders, 108, 426. 
 
 Wey, the, canalization of, by Sir 
 R. Weston, 107, 276 ; paper mills 
 on, 309. 
 
 Weymouth, the Black Death at, 40. 
 
 WhaUey, Maj.-Gen., 119. 
 
 Wheat, prices of, from 1646-1911, 
 440, 441. 
 
 Whey, 14. 
 
 Whig, 14. 
 
 Whitclyve Park, 44. 
 
 " Whiteheads," 367. 
 
 Whitstable, copperas works at, 309. 
 
 " Whole placc^'^ai. 
 
 Wholesale trade in milk tuid com, 
 rise of, 312. 
 
 " Wiches " (salt) of Cheshire, 110. 
 
 Wike, Lord Berkeley at, 32. 
 
 Wilbraham, Roger, of Delamere, 71. 
 
 Wilburton, 226, 245. 
 
 WUdmore Fen, 246, 246, 250. 
 
 William of Malmesbury, his de- 
 scription of Thomey, 116. 
 
 William the Conqueror, and tithes, 
 337. 
 
 Willis, Thomas, tus De Fermentatione, 
 131. 
 
INDEX 
 
 603 
 
 Wiltshire, Report on (Davis), 233, 
 248, 294, 300. 
 
 Winchester measures, 209. 
 
 Winohoomb fair, 31. 
 
 Winohcomb, John (Jack of Newbury), 
 80. 
 
 Windsor, George m.'s merino flock 
 at, 207 ; royal farm at, 360. 
 
 Winstanley, Jerrard, 120 aeq. ; his 
 Letter to the Lord Fairfax, etc., 120, 
 426. 
 
 Winter-keep, 65, 96, 96, 99 ; turnips 
 as, 134 ; efiect of scfurcity of, 188. 
 
 Wire for fencing, 387. 
 
 Wisbeach, St. Mary, 245; boats 
 discovered at, in 1635, 116. 
 
 Wiseton, 208. 
 
 Wissey, the, 116. 
 
 Witenagemot at Andover, in 970, 
 336. 
 
 Witham, the, 276. 
 
 Witney, blanket industry at, 310. 
 
 Wiveliscombe, woollen industry at, 
 311. 
 
 Woad, 108, 136, 312. 
 
 Wobum, 207; fruit farm, 383; 
 sheep-shearings, 221 ; the Wobum 
 Wash, 386; Bordeaux mixture, 386. 
 
 Wokingham, see Oakingham. 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 60. 
 
 Wolves, extinct in reign of Charles 
 n., 162. 
 
 Women and children, emplojrment of 
 in the fields, 408-411. 
 
 Wontnersham, 26. 
 
 Woodchester, Lord Ducie at, 172. 
 
 Woods, destruction of, for fuel, 110; 
 enclosure of, 165 ; forestry on 
 commercial principles, 383. 
 
 Woodstock, glove industry at, 310. 
 
 Wool, burial in, in seventeenth 
 century, 142 ; decay of wool in- 
 dustry, 311 ; English wool, 16, 56, 
 59, 79 aeq., 98, 99, 177 aeq. ; export 
 and import of, 189 ; exportation 
 prohibited, 142 ; import duty 
 removed, 189 ; manufacture by 
 foreigners, 81 ; Markham on, 138, 
 139 ; from open-fields, 95 ; price 
 of, 142 ; in 1850, 371 ; in 1851 
 and 1864, 372 ; wool imder the 
 Tudors, 66, 69, 79 geq. ; in eigh- 
 teenth century, 177 seq. 
 Wootton-imder-Edge, industries at, 
 
 311. 
 Worcestor, glove industry at, 310. 
 Worcester Priory, Begistry of, 24. 
 Worcestershire, Report on (Pomeroy), 
 229 ; clover in, 134 ; executions 
 in 1814-15, 323 ; industries in, 
 311. 
 
 Worgon, G. B., his GomvxM, 311. 
 Workhouse, the, see Poor Laws. 
 Worlidge, John, his Systema Agri- 
 
 cuiUmrae, 91, 130, 134, 428; his 
 
 other works, 428 ; his corn-drill, 
 
 131, 171 ; on turnips, 134, 136. 
 Wotton, Lord Berkeley at, 32. 
 Wren-Hoskyns, Chandos, 369. 
 Wright, Thomas, his Monopoly of 
 
 Small Farms a great cause of the 
 
 presera Scarcity, 298. 
 Writs and executions in 1814-16, in 
 
 Norfolk, 323 ; in SufEolk, 323 ; in 
 
 Worcestershire, 323. 
 Wychwood Forest, 235. 
 Wymondheim (Leicestershire), 187 ; 
 
 (Norfolk), 240. 
 Wynterton, 61. 
 
 Tarcombe, 2. 
 
 Yarland, 21, 22. 
 
 Yarmouth, exports of com from, in 
 eighteenth century, 194. 
 
 Yamton, balloting at, 26. 
 
 Yarranton, Andrew, suggests a Land 
 Registry, 131 ; grows clover, 134 ; 
 his canal proposals, 277 ; his 
 Great Imprwement of Lands by 
 Clover, etc., 428 ; his England's 
 Improvement by Sea and Land, 277, 
 428. 
 
 Yeomen, under Elizabeth, 83, 85 ; 
 extinction of, attributed to en- 
 closure, 291, 292 ; meaning of the 
 word, 296, 297. 
 
 York, a port, 276. 
 
 Yorkshire, East Riding, Report on 
 (Leatham), 224, 239 ; North Rid- 
 ing, Report on (Tuke), 226, 296 ; 
 West Riding, Report on (Brown), 
 226, 261, 295. 
 
 Youatt, William, 360. 
 
 Young, Arthur, 3, 149, 382; his 
 story, 195 seq. ; adopted child of 
 France, 206; at Dishley, 184; 
 Secreteoy to the Board of Agri- 
 culture, 196 ; his blindness, 197 ; 
 crusade against bad farming, 206 ; 
 his daughter, 197 ; his death, 197 ; 
 his estimate of the cultivation of 
 wheat in 1811, 266 ; his failure as 
 a farmer, 112 ; married life, 197 ; 
 on cow-dung ets fuel, 198 ; on 
 enclosure, 302, 304, 306 ; on ex- 
 travagance of gentry, 347 ; on 
 Jethro Tull's house, 170 ; on the 
 open-field system, 199, 216 ; on 
 roads, 203, 204 ; in the eighteenth 
 century, 284 ; in Ireland, 286 ; on 
 rente, 213, 214; on wages, 213, 
 314 ; on Sir R. Weston, 107 ; on 
 
60i 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the winter of 1786, 268 ; Iub Annals 
 ofAgriciiUare, v. Agriculture, Annals 
 of; E»Bex, 192, 197, 293; Enquiry 
 into the rise of Prices in Europe 
 during the last twenty-five years, 314 ; 
 Example of France a Warning to 
 Cheat Britain, 196 ; Farmer^ s tour 
 through the East of England, 184, 
 196 ; France, in 1787-90, 196, 304 ; 
 Hertfordshire, 191, 197, 238, 292, 
 296 ; Inquiry into the Propriety of 
 applying Wastes to the better main- 
 tenance and support of the Poor, 215, 
 216, 240, 306, 307 ; Ireland, 196, 
 286 ; Lecture before the Board of 
 
 Agriculture in 1809, 261 ; Lincoln- 
 shire, 197, 223, 239, 246, 304; 
 Norfolk, 197, 293 ; Observations on 
 the Present State of Waste Lands in 
 Great Britain, 163. 347 ; Oxford- 
 shire, 197, 222, 236, 306 ; Political 
 Arithmetic, 302 ; Progressive Value 
 of Money, 254 ; Question of Scarcity 
 plainly stated, 306; Suffolk, 197, 
 293; Tours, 164, 196, 313, 470; 
 Three Famous Farmers, 179, 186 ; 
 Universal Museum, 196. 
 
 Zealeead, mares from, 183 ; Vermuy- 
 den a native of, 119. 
 
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