THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



so well received that he was requested to repeat it 

 during the past year to the somewhat disaffected 

 artificers of Northampton. The second hearing 

 was quite as successful, and from this we borrow 

 a word on the way that labour and wages go to- 

 gether in the Britannia Works : — "I like the system 

 of piece-work, as it enables the workmen to earn 

 higher wages, and the master pays for no more and 

 no less than is done. I never had any difficulty 

 in letting a job by the piece. I hear there are 

 difficulties in other trades, but I think they would 

 vanish when the system came into operation ; 'tis 

 worthy of remark and consideration, that those 

 trades have made the greatest progrees where piece- 

 work has been the rule. It gives the industrious 

 and skilful man a great advantage over the lazy 

 and unskilful one. It also sets the energies of 

 mind to work to find out readier and quicker 



methods of getting over work. I have no time to 

 enter on overtime ; it may do with your slow day- 

 workmen, but 'tis of no advantage to men by the 

 piece. 1 have had a somewhat extensive experience, 

 and have invariably found the result of overtime, 

 continued for any length of time, to be a large 

 number of men on the sick-list. I believe, if men 

 work well ten hours a-day, they will do more in a 

 year than if worked twelve hours." 



An employer can be hardly better engaged than 

 in offering a word in season to the working-man. 

 And whether it be Lord Palmerston closing the 

 year at Romsey, or Mr. James Howard opening it 

 at Northampton, either is alike to be commended 

 for the sound advice and right tone of what he 

 said. Let us leave the hero of our history in good 

 company. 



THE EARLY ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL AUTHORS. 



BY CUTIIBERT "W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.E.S. 



In a recent number of this valuable piagazine I 

 endeavom-ed to trace some of the earhest-written 

 laws relating to the agriculture of our country 

 from old British days to the time of Henry VIII. It 

 was in that reign that the first two works on Eng- 

 lish fanning were printed. These were the trea- 

 tises of Bishop Grotehead (or Greathead) and of 

 Sir Anthony Fitzherbert. To these very curious 

 little works I propose in this paper to direct my 

 readers' attention. 



It will be well, however, if we first briefly pause 

 to remember what kind of tenantry — what sized 

 farms were held by the husbandmen to whom 

 those two learned authors addressed themselves. 

 As I have on a previous occasion remarked, when 

 alluding to the early notices of English farming, 

 the native Britons, it is very certain, appropriated 

 but small portions of the land for raising corn, or 

 other cultivated vegetables, and the rest of the 

 country was left entirely open, affording a common 

 pasturage for their cattle, and pannage for their 

 swine. Under the Roman governmer the extent 

 of cultivated ground must have considerably in- 

 creased ; yet the oldest writers agree that by far 

 the greatest proportion of the country was occupied 

 by heaths, woods, and other unreclaimed wastes. 



"When the Saxons established themselves in the 

 island, an almost total revolution in the proprietor- 

 ship of the lands must have occurred. The con- 

 quest was only accomplished after a bloody strug- 

 gle ; and what was won by the sword was con- 

 sidered to possess an equitable title that the sword 



alone could disturb. In those days it was sup- 

 posed that the lands of a country all belonged to 

 the king ; and on this principle the Saxon 

 monarchs gave to their followers whatever districts 

 they pleased, as rewards for the assistance afforded 

 in the conquest, reserving to themselves large 

 portions, and imposing certain burdens upon each 

 estate granted {Coke's Littleton, 1, 58, 2; Black- 

 stone's Comm., 45, &c.). This was only a continu- 

 ance of that feudal system that prevailed upon the 

 continent ; and we may take the county of Sussex 

 as an examj)le how the land was carved out among 

 the aristocracy in the days of our Norman kings, 

 reckoning a hide at 100 or 150 acres : — 



HIDES. 



The king had 59i 



Archbishop of Canterbury .. .. 214 



Bishop of Chichester 184 



Abbot of Westminster 7 



Abbot of Fecamp 135 



Bishop Osborn 149 



Abbot of St. Peter's, Winchester . . 33 



Church of Battle 60j 



Comes of Oro 1963^ 



Comes Roger .. 818 



William of Braiose 452j 



Abbot of St. Edward 21 



Comes Moriton 520 



William of Warrene 620i 



Odo and Eldred 10 



These great proprietors granted the chief part of 

 their estates to the actual cultivators of the soil, 

 receiving in general from the under-tenants cer- 

 tain proportions of whatever might be the produc- 



