A Short History of English Agriculture Part 24

The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened neighbours like beings of another order[480]; in their personal labour they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very prosperous time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved.

Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and modern.[481] As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers, Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for one of these new-created farmers to spend 10 or 12, at one entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a brown jug, or a gla.s.s if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters, his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his family.

Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5 feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the princ.i.p.al body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out.

He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he obtained the vote of 1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his system. After the publication of the report his system was followed generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use to his country.

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

By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he made 3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him 1,200 guineas in one year.

One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially a.s.sisted.

At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester'

and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time and, afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s.

while those of the old were 16s.

The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coa.r.s.e, flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland, and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they produced an enormous amount of fat, as. .h.i.therto there had been a difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny'

out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted, large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small quant.i.ties that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4 acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut gra.s.s four times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of cattle might be produced.

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

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

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

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

To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.

To repair gates and fences.

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

Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule, 'under 20 an acre.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering a large quant.i.ty of ground.

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

Another evil custom on the estate had been to permit huts of miserable construction to be erected to the number of several hundreds by the poorest, and in many instances the most profligate, of the population.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even near London they were often terrible. 'Of all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.[496]

It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pa.s.s by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his wagon to a.s.sist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible depth, and everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30 horses tacked to each drew them out one by one' Others said that turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness; as soon as they opened up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all tended to one level.

Owing to the work of Telford and Macadam, the high roads by the first quarter of the nineteenth century attained a high pitch of excellence; and were thronged with traffic, coaches, postchaises, private carriages, equestrians, carts and wagons: so animated a sight that our forefathers built small houses called 'gazebos' on the sides of the road, where they met to take tea and watch the ever varying stream. It should not be forgotten, too, that the inns, where numbers of horses put up, were splendid markets for the farmers' oats, hay, and straw.

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

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

s. d. s. d.

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

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

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

We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example is one of the glories of English agriculture. c.o.ke of Holkham began his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady Townshend said, 'all you will see will be one blade of gra.s.s and two rabbits fighting for that;' in fact it was little better than a rabbit warren. It has been said that all the wheat consumed in the county of Norfolk was at this time imported from abroad; but this is in direct contradiction to Young's a.s.sertion, already noted, that there were in 1767 great quant.i.ties of wheat besides other crops in the county.

c.o.ke's estate indeed seems to have been considerably behind many parts of the shire when he began his farming career.[500] When c.o.ke came into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms were held at 3s. 6d. an acre; and in the previous leases they had been 1s. 6d. an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing it with the average rent of 10s. which Young says prevailed at this time. With a view to remedy this state of things he studied the agriculture of other counties, and his observations thereon reveal a very poor kind of farming in many places: in Cheshire the rich pasture was wasted and the poor impoverished by sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire luxuriant gra.s.s was understocked, in Shropshire there were hardly any sheep; in his own part of Norfolk the usual rotation was three white straw crops and then broadcast turnips.[501] This c.o.ke changed to two white crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to the surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, so that clover and gra.s.ses began to grow. So successful was he in this that in 1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 104 acres of land previously valued at 12s. an acre. He increased his flock of sheep from 800 worthless animals with backs as narrow as rabbits, the description of the Norfolk sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns.

Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he started a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter 110, and the Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single experiment of this kind is not very conclusive.

The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, absurdly over-horsed, from three to five being used when only two were necessary; so c.o.ke set the example of using two whenever possible, and won a bet with Sir John Sebright by ploughing an acre of stiff land in Hertfordshire in a day with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak bare countryside by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had 3,000 acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak grown from the acorns he had himself planted.[502] Between 1776 and 1842 (the date of his death) he is said to have spent 536,992 on improving his estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy, and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having excellent houses built for them; so good, indeed, that his political opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farmhouses.

At first he met with that stolid opposition to progress which seems the particular characteristic of the farmer. For sixteen years no one followed him in the use of the drill, though it was no new thing; and when it was adopted he reckoned its use spread at the rate of a mile a year. Yet eventually he had his reward; his estate came to command the pick of English tenant farmers, who never left it except through old age, and would never live under any other landlord. Even the Radical Cobbett, to whom, as to most of his party, landlords were, and are, the objects of inveterate hatred, said that every one who knew him spoke of him with affection. c.o.ke was the first to distinguish between the adaptability of the different kinds of gra.s.s seeds to different soils, and thereby made the hitherto barren lands of his estate better pasture land than that of many rich counties. Carelessness about the quality of gra.s.ses sown was universal for a long time. The farmer took his seeds from his own foul hayrick, or sent to his neighbour for a supply of rubbish; even Bakewell derived his stock from his hayloft.

It was not until the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered prizes for clean hay seeds that some improvement was noticeable. In Norfolk, as in other parts of England, there was at this time a strong prejudice against potatoes; the villagers of Holkham refused to have anything to do with them, but c.o.ke's invincible persistency overcame this unreasoning dislike and soon they refused to do without them.

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

FOOTNOTES:

[440] _Northern Tour_, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Series), iv. 1.

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

[442] _Rural Economy_ (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote in 1780, mentions 'the general rage for farming throughout the kingdom.'--_Practical Husbandry_, p. I.