A Short History of English Agriculture Part 23

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

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

DR. s. d.

Grains 10 4 Cutting a litter 1 6 5 quarters peas 5 2 0 10 bushels barley 1 0 0 Expenses in selling[456] 11 6 10 bushels peas 1 6 3 ---------- 8 11 7 ==========

CR. s. d.

A pig 2 3 A fat hog 1 9 0 Another, 110 lb. wt. 1 12 9 Another, 116 lb. wt. 2 0 0 Heads 5 3 3 fat hogs 6 7 0 1 fat hog 2 0 0 10 young pigs 4 16 6 ----------- 18 12 9 8 11 7 ----------- Profit 10 1 2 ===========

We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull perhaps _again_ invented it. He practised it upon an extent of ground far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'[457]

It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill husbandry was the inferiority of the drills. .h.i.therto invented. They were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called, for such it then was--a combination of drill, plough, and harrow--capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills. .h.i.therto made were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the horses, and drag them after them; in pa.s.sing gateways twenty to one they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are still to be seen!

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

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

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

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

Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.[459] In his _Tour in France_ Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per acre; who will drain his land at the expense of 2 to 3 an acre; who will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for men to use them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of small farms.' In 1868 the _Report of the Commission on the Agriculture of France_[460] agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour, difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.

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

s. d.

Rent, t.i.the, and town charges for first year 70 0 0 Household furniture 30 0 0 Wagon 25 0 0 Cart with ladders 12 0 0 Tumbril 10 0 0 Roller for broad lands (of wood) 2 0 0 " narrow " " 1 15 0 Cart harness for 4 horses 8 17 0 Plough " " 2 16 0 2 ploughs 3 0 0 A pair of harrows 1 15 0 Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c. 8 0 0 Dairy furniture 3 0 0 20 sacks 2 10 0 4 horses 32 0 0 Wear and tear, and shoeing one year 13 0 0 Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @ 2s. 6d. each a week 14 0 0 5 cows 20 0 0 20 sheep 5 10 0 One sow 15 0 One servant's board and wages for one year 15 0 0 A labourer's wages for one year 20 0 0 Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11s. 6d. 24 3 0 Harvest labour 1 10 0 ------------ 326 11 0 ============

Or nearly 5 an acre.

About the same date the _Complete English Farmer_ reckoned that the occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to have a capital of 1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses and maintaining his family, he could put by 50 a year; 'but this capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'[461]

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

William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.

Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of the latter was 50 against 25 for the former.[462]

Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one.

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

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

s. d.

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

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

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

s. d.

Food, 6s. per week[466]; per year 15 12 0 Rent 1 10 0 Clothes 2 10 0 Soap and candles 1 5 0 Loss of time through illness, and medicine 1 0 0 Fuel 2 0 0 ---------- 23 17 0 ==========

s. d.

The man's wages were, @ 1s. 3d. a day, for the year 19 10 0 The woman's, @ 3-3/4d. a day, for the year 4 17 6 The boy of fifteen could earn 9 0 0 The boy of ten could earn 4 7 6 ---------- 37 15 0 ==========

Which would give the family a surplus of 13 18s. 0d. a year.

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

s. d.

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

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

The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.

Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened; the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor, often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed in great quant.i.ties, the southerner apparently always drinking a considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.

The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far as quant.i.ty goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon 'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped, and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'[471] Yet in the beer-drinking counties great quant.i.ties were consumed; a gallon a day per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]

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

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

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

s. d.

Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year 19 10 0 Beer " 1s. 6d. " 3 18 0 Soap and candles 1 5 0 Rent 1 10 0 Clothes 2 10 0 Fuel 2 0 0 Illness, &c. 1 0 0 Infant 2 12 0 ---------- 34 5 0 ==========

This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of 3 10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so, it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet, was enough to kill all spirit in any one.

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

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

London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men said, to be no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for 8s. or 10s. got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year.

One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges, sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day.

In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from 1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circ.u.mstances of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most prosperous period that England has ever experienced'[476]; and it was Young's opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed, clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour generally high.'[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the baron or lord.'[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.'

The private gentleman of 300 or 400 a year must have his horses, dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt depicts one phase of national life.

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

'An independent gentleman of 300 per annum who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver b.u.t.tons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at a.s.size or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day, the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick with large cas.e.m.e.nted bow windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was posted King Charles's _Golden Rules_, Vincent Wing's _Almanac_ and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's _Chronicle_, Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, Glanvill _On Apparitions_, Quincey's _Dispensatory_, _The Complete Justice_, and a _Book of Farriery_. In a corner by the fireside stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he entertained his tenants, a.s.sembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale went round. These men and their houses are no more.'