THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



189 



tery to our British women to say tliat tlieir personal 

 cliarms and virtues have, ffom the earliest recorded period, 

 exercised a most salutary influence on our race and wel- 

 fare, for we find eveiy powerful nation, from the Eomans 

 to the Nonnans, interraarrjing with our British women ; 

 and we have no record of the introduction of foreign 

 women into this happy country. Strangely enougli, I 

 might quote my own case in proof of my argument, for my 

 father was a Roman, and my grandfather a Saxon — my 

 mother and grandmother being both English. One thou- 

 sand five hundred years ago, Britain had possessed for 

 more than thi-oo centuries nearly the whole of the Roman 

 civilization, sucli as personal secimty — and, after payment 

 of Roman taxes, security of property — arts and letters, ele- 

 gant and commodious buildings, and roads to which no 

 roads they have had since can bear comparison, except our 

 present railways. It is easy to imagine that under such 

 circumstances, and with the instruction and encourage- 

 ment imparted by Roman civilization, British agriculture 

 improved and flourished, and not only supplied its own in- 

 habitants, but exported corn to Rome. The Romans were 

 compeljed by their domestic troubles finally to abandon 

 Britain, a.d. 449. 



449 TO 1066. — Now Commenced fheDarh or Middle Age.— 

 The Picts and Scots ravaged the South country, and the 

 divided Britons, unable to cope with their fierce and bar- 

 barous enemies, called to their aid the Saxons. These 

 wild, warlike, and pagan people liked the country so well 

 that they speedily sent for their countrymen, and eventually 

 became masters of Britain; having, however, to sustain 

 frequent and bloody wars with the piratical Danes, who 

 occasionally overran portions of the country. Agi'iculture 

 thus fared badly for several centuiies, and we can easily 

 believe Adam Smith, who says, "When the German and 

 Scythian nations overran the Western provinces of the 

 Roman empu-e, the confusions which followed so great a 

 revolution lasted for several centuries. The rapine and 

 violence which the barbarians exercised against the ancient 

 inhabitants interrupted the commerce between the towns 

 and the country. The towns were deserted, and the coun- 

 try left uncultivated; and the AVestern provinces of 

 Europe, which had enjoyed a considerable degree of opu- 

 lence under the Roman empire, sunk into the lowest state 

 of poverty and barbarism. During the continuance of 

 those confusions, the chiefs and principal leaders of those 

 nations acquired or usurped to themselves the greater part 

 of the lands of those countries. A great part of them was 

 uncultivated ; but no part of them, whether cultivated or 

 uncultivated, was left without a proprietor. All of them 

 were engrossed, and the gi'eater part by a few great pro- 

 prietors. This original engrossing of imcultivated lands, 

 though a great, might have been but a transitory evil. 

 They might soon have been divided again and broke into 

 small parcels, either by succession or by alienation. The 

 law of primogeniture hindered them from being divided 

 by succession ; the introduction of entails prevented their 

 being broken into small parcels by alienation. But when 

 land was considered as the means, not of subsistence 

 merely, but of power and protection, it was thought better 

 that it should descend undivided to one. In those dis- 

 orderly times, evei7 great landlord was a sort of petty 

 prince. His tenants were bis subjects, He was their 

 judge J aud iu some respects their legislator in peace, and 



their leader in war. He made war according to his own 

 discretion — frequently against his neighbours, and some- 

 times against liis sovereign." Wien, however, they be- 

 came, by admixture of race, Anglo-Saxons and christian- 

 ized, a great improvement gradually took place. They no 

 longer sold their wives and daughters as slaves, and they 

 appear to have been possessed of the most of the usual 

 live stock and implements of ancient agriculture. Murrain 

 and famine alternately diminished tlieir live stock and popu- 

 lation, much as it does now in ignorant and pagan nations; 

 and one-fifth of their herds perished every winter from ex- 

 posure and want of food. The wool of a sheep was valued 

 at two-fifths of tho pi-ice of the whole sheep. 



A.D. 866. — In Iving Ethelred's time, the following prices 

 were fixed by law: — A man or slave 20s., horse 30s., mare 

 or colt 20s., ass or mule 12s., cow 5s., ox 6s., swino Is. 3d., 

 sheep Is., goat 2d. The lands belonging to the Churoix 

 were, generally, the best cultivated. The monks them- 

 selves engaged in the labours of tho field as a means of 

 support. Then, as now, the superior education, and oon- 

 sequent intelligence, of our clergy enabled them to im- 

 prove agriculture. 



1066 TO 1400. — In the eleventh century William the 

 Norman conquered England, and the foreign knights and 

 others who accompanied him, or who afterwards settled 

 here, made many improvements m horticulture and agri- 

 culture. They were, however, great game preservers, and 

 their forest laws for its preservation wore severe in the 

 extreme. They delighted in the chase, planted the New 

 Forest, and converted many extensive tracts of country 

 into woodland as shelter for their game. Theii' ruined 

 castles abound in Essex and Suffolk. Within three milea 

 of Tiptreo Hall is a fine specimen of their 

 architecture, called Layer Marney tower — the ad- 

 joining church containing effigies of tho Layer 

 Marney family. As a rule they selected good land. 

 The population was now estimated at about two mil- 

 lions. The drainage of the fens of Cambridge and Lin- 

 colnshire were commenced at this period, a.d. 1320. Our 

 Scotch friends were considered behind us in farming. 

 Essex was one vast forest, and stoodforemost in Domesday 

 Book for its number of pigs, which there found their food 

 under oak and beech trees — the number was 92,991— 

 Hertfordshire having only 30,705. A great many goats 

 were kept as stock ; and, even now, very old men tell me 

 of the fierce she-goats which rushed out upon them, some 

 eighty years' since, when Tiptree Heath was a wild and 

 wooded waste. Lords of the manor had considerable pri- 

 vileges. They monopolised all the watermills; their 

 tenants were compelled to send their corn to them to be 

 ground. The lord of the manor monopolized also the 

 privileges of baking his tenant's bread at the common 

 " fourne." Windmills were not known in England until 

 about 1150. The shoeing of horses with iron is not sup- 

 posed to have been used before the Conquest. Horses 

 were rarely used in agricultm'c. As there is much discus- 

 sionjust now about wearing beards, it may be interesting 

 to know that our laity all wore beards until the Norman 

 Conquest ; so I suppose the'Normans cropped as well as 

 conquered us. They were, themselves, close shaved or 

 croppen, for the spies reported ' to King Harold that they 

 had whole regiments of priests, inferring from the practice 

 o.f our then clergy that close cropping and priestcraft were 



B 3 



