322 Mr. H. Rider Haggard [May 8, 



lessening of the number of agricultural labourers and shepherds from 

 1,253,786 in 1851 to 620,000 in 1901 (which I understand to be the 

 figures) can scarcely be ignored. 



Of course it may be answered that even in districts that are purely 

 rural in character and include no towns of any importance, more folk 

 dwell to-day than were to be found there in the past. But to this 

 the rejoinder is that such matters should surely be judged propor- 

 tionately. Also I incline to the belief that the rural population of 

 England — say in the middle ages and after them — was more numer- 

 ous than is commonly supposed. 



Any observant traveller in Northamptonshire and other midland 

 counties will have noticed that many tens of thousands of acres 

 which are now under grass, have at some time in our past history 

 been beneath the plough, as is shown by the endless high-ridged 

 " lands " or " stetches " of an equal width. Now even to-day with our 

 improved implements, to cultivate so much arable would require a 

 far larger population than is to be found in the tiny villages of the 

 grass counties. What, then, must it have required when ploughs 

 were cumbersome wooden instruments, dragged, after the South 

 African fashion, by a team of six or more oxen which would probably 

 need a leader as well as a ploughman ? Of course we have no sure 

 means of knowing at what period this great extent of country ceased 

 to produce corn and began to produce grass. That, at any rate in 

 certain instances, this was a long time ago I have, however, proved 

 to my own satisfaction, thus : — 



It occurred to me that as a plough cannot be dragged through the 

 trunk of a timber, if I could find trees growing upon the exact crests 

 of continuous and undoubted plough-lands now under grass, it would 

 show that those particular " lands " were already under grass when 

 such trees seeded themselves, or were planted. Acting upon this 

 thought I searched diligently. In Oxfordshire I found trees of about 

 200 years standing in the required position, and showing therefore 

 that these fields where they grew, were grass two centuries ago. In 

 Northamptonshire I found trees of at least four hundred years 

 similarly situated, showing that four centuries ago that land was grass. 

 Finally on a farm about ten miles from York, standing in a pasture 

 upon the very crest of a distinct and undoubted " land," I discovered 

 an ancient pollard oak that in my judgment — and I have given 

 some attention to the age of timber — must have sprung from the 

 acorn at least seven centuries ago, showing that about the year 1200 this 

 particular field was already under grass. Of that oak a photograph, 

 taken at the time, may be found in the secoud volume of my work, 

 ' liural England.' 



On the whole I incline to the belief that it was after the Black 

 Death that the bulk of these districts went down naturally to grass, 

 and that before this the population upon them was comparatively 

 dense. It is, however, possible, since the shape of heaped-up earth 

 varies little, even in the course of many centuries, that all this culti- 



