A Short History of English Agriculture Part 26

[492] Defoe, _Tour_, ii. 178 et seq.

[493] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Ser.), ii. 9.

[494] Horner, _Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the Public Roads_ (1767), pp. 4 et seq.

[495] _Victoria County History: Northants._, ii. 250.

[496] Young, _Southern Tour_ (ed. 2), p. 88.

[497] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 68. It is difficult to understand the price of the quartern loaf, 1s. 6d. in 1766, as wheat was only 43s. 1d. a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were:

s. d.

1767 47 4 1768 53 9 1769 40 7 1770 43 6 1771 47 2 1772 50 8 1773 51 0 1774 52 8 1775 48 4 1776 38 2 1777 45 6 1778 42 0 1779 33 8

These returns differ from those of the Board of Agriculture; see Appendix III.

[498] _Annals of Agriculture_, iii. 366.

[499] Baker, _Seasons and Prices_, pp. 224 et seq.

[500] A. Stirling, _c.o.ke of Holkham_, i. 249.

[501] But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was well understood, for the _Complete Farmer_, s.v. _Turnips_ (ed. 3), says that about 1750 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled the value of their holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for understanding hoeing and thinning, which were little practised elsewhere. Further, Young, _Southern Tour_, p. 273, says: 'the extensive use of turnips is known but little of except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Ess.e.x. I found no farmers but in these counties that understood anything of fatting cattle with them; feeding lean sheep being the only use they put them to.'

[502] A. Stirling, _op. cit._ i. 264.

[503] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1895), p. 12.

CHAPTER XVII

1793-1815

THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.--THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.--HIGH PRICES, AND HEAVY TAXATION.

This period, that of the great war with France, was one generally of high prices and prosperity for landowners and farmers. It was a prosperity, however, that was largely fict.i.tious, and when the high prices of the war time were over, it was succeeded by many disastrous years. The prosperity, too, was also largely neutralized by a crushing weight of taxation and rates, while the labourer, although his wages were increased, found prices grow at a much greater rate, and it was, as Thorold Rogers has said, the most miserable period in his history.

Its commencement was marked by the foundation of the Board of Agriculture. On May 15, 1793, Sir John Sinclair[504] moved in the House of Commons, 'that His Majesty would take into his consideration the advantages which might be derived from the establishment of such a board, for though in some particular districts improved methods of cultivating the soil were practised, yet in the greatest part of these kingdoms the principles of agriculture are not sufficiently understood, nor are the implements of husbandry or the stock of the farmer brought to that perfection of which they are capable. His Majesty's faithful Commons were persuaded that if it were founded a spirit of improvement might be encouraged, which would result in important national benefits.

The motion was carried by 101 to 26. By its charter the board consisted of a president, 16 ex-officio and 30 ordinary members, with honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving a sum of 3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chancellor, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker.

The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first secretary Arthur Young, with a salary of 400 a year, which he thought insufficient.[505] The first task of the new board was that of preparing statistical accounts of English agriculture, and it was intended to take in hand the commutation of t.i.thes, which would have been a great boon to farmers, with whom the prevailing system of collecting t.i.thes was very unpopular; but the Primate's opposition stopped this. The board appointed lecturers, procured a reward for Elkington for his draining system, encouraged Macadam in his plans for improving roads, and Meikle the inventor of the thrashing machine, and obtained the removal of taxes on draining tiles, and other taxes injurious to agriculture. It also recommended the allotment system, and Sinclair desired 3 acres and a cow for every industrious cottager.

During the abnormally high prices of provisions from 1794-6, the quartern loaf in London in 1795 being 1s. 6d., though next year it dropped to 7-3/4d.,[506] the board made experiments in making bread with subst.i.tutes for wheat, which resulted in a public exhibition of eighty different sorts of bread. Its efforts were generally followed by increased zeal among agriculturists; but Sinclair, an able but impetuous man,[507] appears to have taken things too much into his own hands and pushed them too speedily.

Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys, which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of the subject.

Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of 200), owing to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the best means of converting certain portions of gra.s.s land into tillage without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to gra.s.s, after a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury.

The general report, based on the information derived from these essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on certain soils well adapted to gra.s.s age improves the quality of the pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners and farmers, when wheat was a guinea a bushel or at prices near it, led to the ploughing up of much splendid gra.s.s land, which was never laid down again until, perhaps in recent years, owing to the low price of grain; so that some of the land at all events has, owing to bad times, returned to the state best suited to it.

The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands, which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,[508] as a panacea for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to pa.s.s through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109, 'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted that they should hold good in all cases where the special Act did not expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural chemistry.

In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous, he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room several of the n.o.blemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered on theatricals.'

Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801, and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had a.n.a.lysed and found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of 2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it, the clergy feared the commutation of t.i.the which the board advocated, the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation; and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after doing much valuable work for English agriculture.

Before its extinction it had held in 1821, at Aldridge's Repository, the first national agricultural show. 685 was given in prizes, and the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes; 12 pens of Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes.[509] Most of the cattle shown were Shorthorn, or Durham, as they were then called, with some Herefords, Devons, Longhorns, and Alderneys. There were also exhibits of gra.s.s, turnip-seed, roots, and implements.

This first national show had been preceded by many local ones.[510]

The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries saw the establishment all over England of farmers' clubs, cattle shows, and ploughing matches.

The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Collings, who next to Bakewell did most to improve the cattle of the United Kingdom. Charles Colling was born in 1751, and the scene of his famous labours was Ketton near Darlington. He had learnt from Bakewell the all-importance of quality in cattle, and determined to improve the local Shorthorn breed near his own home, which had been described in 1744 as 'the most profitable beasts for the dairyman, butcher, and grazier, with their wide bags, short horns, and large bodies.' He was to make these 'profitable beasts' the best all-round cattle in the world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull of merit he possessed was 'Hubback',[511] described as a little yellow, red, and white five-year-old, which was mated with cows afterwards to be famous, named d.u.c.h.ess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady Maynard. At first Colling was against in-breeding, and not until 1793 did he adopt it, more by accident than intention, but the experiment being successful he became an enthusiast. The experiment was the putting of Phoenix to Lord Bolingbroke, who was both her half-brother and her nephew, and the result was the famous Favourite. A young farmer who saw Favourite and his sister at Darlington in 1799, was so struck by them that he paid Colling the first 100 guineas ever given for a Shorthorn cow.[512]

One of Hubback's daughters had in 1795, by Favourite, a roan calf which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for 140. It was sold again for 250, the second purchaser refusing 2,000 for it, and taking it round England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in London making 97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born 1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull was the crowning triumph of Colling's career and the result of very close breeding, being described as the best bull ever seen, with a fine masculine head, broad and deep chest, shoulders well laid back, loins good, hind-quarters long, straight and well packed, thighs thick, with nice straight hocks and hind legs. Perhaps Colling thought he had pursued in-and-in breeding too far, at all events in 1810 he dispersed his famous herd. The sale was held at a most propitious time, for the Durham Ox had advertised the name of Colling far and wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000 guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged 151 8s. 5d., an unheard-of sale, yet all the auctioneer got was 5 guineas, much of the work of the sale falling on the owner, and the former sold the stock with a sand-gla.s.s.

After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother, pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged 128 14s. 9d. for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged 39 6s. 4d. Robert died in 1820, his brother in 1836.

It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed that might otherwise have disappeared.[513] The object of good breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for 20 apiece, generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the following summer, coa.r.s.e pasture; the second winter, straw in the foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.[514]

Cattle at this time were cla.s.sified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Suss.e.x, Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and Alderneys.

Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters, Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, Southdown, Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.[515]

With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787; for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon, 1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and food-crushers.[516] But the great innovation was the threshing machine of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first threshing machine is mentioned in the _Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland_, published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet diameter, moved by a small quant.i.ty of water. The first attempts to subst.i.tute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was tried,[517] Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,[518] among his inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 Mr. Aitchison, of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by horse--or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine.

With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced it.[519] The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and p.r.i.c.kly comfrey in 1811.

The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy summer, and in August wheat went up to 108s. a quarter.[520] As usual many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again.

The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year, the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most demoralizing and the English labourer, already too p.r.o.ne to look to the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions.

The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen, it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.[521]

In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer was getting 1s. 2d. a day and beer, with extras in harvest[522]; but bacon was 10d. a lb. and wheat 12s. a bushel. However, parish allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes receiving 11s. a week from that source.

In c.u.mberland the labourer was being paid 10d. to 1s. a day with food, or 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. without; in Hertfordshire, 1s. 6d. a day; in Suffolk, 1s. 4d. a day and beer.

Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of his earnings, the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one case to 21 18s. 4d. In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in rates.

About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known as the 'roundsman system'.[523]

Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of 1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was pa.s.sed, suspending cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at Smithfield:

s. d. s. d.

Beef, per stone of 8 lb. 3 0 to 3 4 Mutton " " 3 0 " 4 2 Pork " " 2 8 " 3 8

The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94s. 2d., and in June, 1800, was 134s. 5d., the scarcity being aggravated by the Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.[525] Yet Pitt denied that the high prices were due to the war.[526] They were due, indeed, to several causes:

1. Frequent years of scarcity.