A Short History of English Agriculture Part 16

[312] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 28.

[313] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641, Surtees Society, x.x.xiii. 157.

[314] Ibid. p. 99.

[315] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641.

Surtees Society, x.x.xiii. 124. Many districts in the north of England were still much behind the rest of the country.

[316] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, 8 sq. Though, as we have seen, p. 157, the writer of the _Fruiterer's Secrets_ recommends the gun for scaring birds in 1604.

[317] _The Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders_ (ed. 1652), p. 18.

[318] _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 26.

[319] MS. accounts of Sir Abel Barker, in the possession of G.W.P.

Conant, Esq.

[320] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 28.

[321] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 5.

[322] Ibid. p. 9.

[323] Cf. supra, p. 136.

[324] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 23.

[325] _Archaeologia_, i. 324; iii. 53.

[326] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Ser., lxi.

[327] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, 57 n.

[328] Ibid.

[329] Ed. 1686, p. 380.

[330] R. Bradley, _A General Treatise of Husbandry_ (ed. 1726), ii.

52.

[331] Tooke, _History of Prices_ i. 44. Brandy was made in the eighteenth century from grapes grown in the Beaulieu vineyards in Hampshire, and a bottle of it long kept at the abbey.--_Hampshire Notes and Queries_, vi. 62. There are two vineyards to-day, of 2-3/4 and 4 acres respectively, on the estates of the Marquis of Bute in Glamorganshire; but a vintage is only obtained once in four or five years from them, and they are not profitable.

[332] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p, 42.

[333] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p. 57.

[334] Ibid. p. 73.

[335] In this apparently repeating Davenant's statement. See McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, 1852, p. 271.

[336] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 332.

[337] Houghton, _Collections for Improvement of Husbandry_, i. 294.

[338] Ibid., _Collections for Husbandry and Trade_ (ed. 1728), iv.

336.

CHAPTER XIII

THE EVILS OF COMMON FIELDS.--HOPS.--IMPLEMENTS.--MANURES.--GREGORY KING--CORN LAWS

From what has been said in the preceding pages, it will be gathered that a vast amount of compa.s.sion has been wasted on the enclosure of commons, for it is abundantly evident from contemporary writers that there were a large number of people dragging out a miserable existence on them, by living on the produce of a cow or two, or some sheep and a few poultry, with what game they could sometimes catch, and refusing regular work. Dymock, Hartlib's contemporary, questions 'whether commons do not rather make poore by causing idlenesse than maintaine them;' and he also asks how it is that there are fewest poor where there are fewest commons.

In the common fields, too, there was continual strife and contention caused by the infinite number of trespa.s.ses that they were subject to.[339] The absence of hedges, too, in these great open fields was bad for the crops, for there was nothing to mitigate drying and scorching winds, while in the open waste and meadows the live stock must have sadly needed shelter and shade, 'losing more flesh in one hot day than they gained in three cool days.' Worlidge, a Hampshire man, joins in the chorus of praise of enclosures, for they brought employment to the poor, and maintained treble 'the number of inhabitants' that the open fields did; and he gives further proof of the enclosure of land in the seventeenth century, when he mentions 'the great quant.i.ties of land that have within our memories lain open, and in common of little value, yet when enclosed have proved excellent good land.' Why then was this most obvious improvement not more generally effected? Because there was a great impediment to it in the numerous interests and diversity of t.i.tles and claims to almost every common field and piece of waste land in England, whereby one or more envious or ignorant persons could thwart the will of the majority.[340] Another hindrance, he says, was that many roads pa.s.sed over the commons and wastes, which a statute was needed to stop.

In the seventeenth century hop growing was not nearly so common in England as in the preceding, when Harrison had said, in his _Description of Britain_, 'there are few farmers or occupiers in the country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and those far better than do come from Flanders.' There seems, indeed, to have been a prejudice against the hop; Worlidge[341] says it was esteemed an unwholesome herb for the use it was usually put to, 'which may also be supplied with several other wholesome and better herbs.'

John Evelyn was very much against them, probably because he was such an advocate of cider: 'It is little more than an age,' he says, 'since hopps trans.m.u.ted our wholesome ale into beer, which doubtless much altered our const.i.tutions. That one ingredient, by some not unworthily suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom made agreeable, yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases, and a shorter life, may deservedly abate our fondness for it, especially if with this be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom succeeding more than once in three years.'[342] The City of London pet.i.tioned against hops as spoiling the taste of drink.

Yet its cultivation is said to have advanced the price of land to 40, 50, and sometimes 100 an acre, the latter an almost incredible price if we consider the value of money then. There were not enough planted to serve the kingdom, and Flemish hops had to be imported, though not nearly so good as English. A great deal of dishonesty, moreover, was shown by the foreign importers, so that in 1603 a statute (1 Jac. I, c. 18) was pa.s.sed against the 'false packinge of forreine hops,' by which it appears that the sacks were filled up with leaves, stalks, powder, sand, straw, wood, and even soil, for increasing the weight, by which English growers it is said lost 20,000 a year. Such hops were to be forfeited, and brewers using them were to forfeit their value. The chief cause of their decrease was that few farmers would take the trouble and care required to grow them, in spite of the often excellent prices, which at Winchester at this date averaged from 50s.

to 80s. a cwt., sometimes, however, reaching over 200s., as in 1665 and 1687, though then as now they were subject to great fluctuations, and in 1691 were only 31s. Many, too, were discouraged by the fact 'they are the most of any plant that grows subject to the various mutations of the air, mildews sometimes totally destroying them,' no doubt an allusion to the aphis blight. Hop yards were often protected at this early date by hedges of tall trees, usually ash or poplar, the elm being disapproved of as contracting mildews. Markham[343] says that Hertfordshire then contained as good hops as he had seen anywhere, and there the custom was 250 hills to every rood, 'and every hill will bear 2-1/2 lb., worth on an average 4 n.o.bles a cwt. (a n.o.ble = 6s. 8d.);' hills were to be 6 ft. apart at least, poles 16 to 18 ft.

long and 9 or 10 inches in circ.u.mference at the b.u.t.t, of ash, oak, beech, alder, maple or willow.

Some planted the hills in 'plain squares chequerwise, which is the best way if you intend to plough with horses between the hills. Others plant them in form of a quincunx, which is better for the hop, and will do very well where your ground is but small that you may overcome it with either the breast plough or spade.' The manure recommended by Worlidge was good mould, or dung and earth mixed. The hills were like mole-hills 3 feet high, and sometimes were large enough to have as many as 20 poles, so that some hop yards must have looked very different then from what they do now, even when poles are retained; but from two to five poles per hill was the more usual number.

Cultivation was much the same as in Reynold Scott's time, and picking was still done on a 'floor' prepared by levelling the hills, watering, treading, and sweeping the ground, round which the pickers sat and picked into baskets, but the hop crib was also used.

It was considered better not to let the hops get too ripe, as the growers were aware of the value of a fresh, green-looking sample; and Worlidge advises the careful exclusion of leaves and stalks, though Markham does not agree with him. Kilns were of two sorts: the English kiln made of wood, lath, and clay; the French of brick, lime, and sand, not so liable to burn as the former and therefore better.[344]

One method of drying was finely to bed the kiln with wheat straw laid on the hair-cloth, the hops being spread 8 inches thick over this, 'and then you shall keepe a fire a little more fervent than for the drying of a kiln full of malt,' the fire not to be of wood, for that made the hops smoky and tasted the beer, but of straw! Worlidge, strangely, recommended the bed of the kiln to be covered with tin, as much better than hair-cloth, for then any sort of fuel would do as well as charcoal, since the smoke did not pa.s.s through the hops.

Besides Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, and Rutlandshire; Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire were recommended by Markham for hop growing, the great hop counties of to-day being pa.s.sed over by him.

The growth of hemp and flax had by this time considerably decayed, owing to the want of encouragement to trade in these commodities, the lack of experience in growing them, and the t.i.thes which in some years amounted to more than the profits.[345] An acre of good flax was worth from 7 to 12; but if 'wrought up fit to sell in the market' from 15 to 20.

Woad was considered a 'very rich commodity', but according to Blyth it robbed the land if long continued upon it, although if moderately used it prepared land for corn, drawing a 'different juice from what the corn requires'. It more than doubled the rent of land, and had been sold at from 6 to 20 a ton, the produce of an acre. John Lawrence, who wrote in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, says woad was in his time cultivated by companies of people, men, women, and children, who hired the land, built huts, and grew and prepared the crop for the dyer's use, then moved on to another place.[346]

There were proofs that man's inventive genius was at work among farm implements. Worlidge mentions[347] an engine for setting corn, invented by Gabriel Plat, made of two boards bored with wide holes 4 in. apart, set in a frame, with a funnel to each hole. It was fitted with iron pins 5 in. long to 'play up and down', and dibble holes into which the corn was to go from the funnels. This machine was so intricate and clumsy that Worlidge found no use for it. However, he recommends another instrument which certainly seems to antic.i.p.ate Tull's drill, though Tull is said to have stated when Bradley showed him a cut of it that it was only a proposal and it never got farther than the cut.[348] It consisted of a frame of small square pieces of timber 2 inches thick; the breadth of the frame 2 feet, the height 18 inches, length 4 feet, placed on four good-sized wheels. In the middle of the frame a coulter was fixed to make a furrow for the corn, which fell through a wooden pipe behind, that dropped the corn out of a hopper containing about a bushel, the fall of the corn from the hopper being regulated by a wooden wheel in its neck. The same frame might contain two coulters, pipes, and hoppers, and the instrument could be worked with one horse and one man. It was considered a great advance on sowing broadcast, and by the use of it 'you may also cover your grain with any rich compost you shall prepare for that purpose, either with pigeon dung, dry or granulated, or any other saline or lixirial (alkaline, or of potash) substance, which may drop after the corn from another hopper behind the one that drops the corn, or from a separate drill'. The corn thus sown in rows was found easier to weed and hoe, so that it is clear that this advantage was well understood before Tull's time.

There was a great diversity of ploughs at this date, almost every county having some variation.[349] The princ.i.p.al sorts were the double-wheel plough, useful upon hard land, usually drawn with horses or oxen two abreast, the wheels 18 in. to 20 in. high. The one-wheel plough, which could be used on almost any sort of land; it was very 'light and nimble', so that it could be drawn by one horse and held by one man, and thus ploughed an acre a day.

Then there was a 'plain plough without either wheel or foot', very easy to work and fit for any lands; a double plough worked by four horses and two men, of two kinds, one ploughing a double furrow, the other a double depth.

There were also ploughs with a harrow attached, others constructed to plough, sow, and harrow, but not of much value; and a turfing plough for burning sod. Carts and waggons were of many sorts, according to the locality, the greater wheels of the waggon being usually 18 feet in circ.u.mference the lesser 9 feet. A useful implement was the trenching plough used on gra.s.s land to cut out the sides of trenches or drains, with a long handle and beam and with a coulter or knife fixed in it and sometimes a wheel or wheels. The following is a list of other implements then considered necessary for a farm.

_For the field._

Harrows Mole spear Beetles Forks Mole traps Roller Sickles Weedhooks Cradle scythe Reaphooks Pitchforks Seedlip[350]