APPENDIX A XXXI 
which wheat was sometimes sold, give evidence that its consumption was 
probably confined to the wealthy. Rye, barley and oats furnished the 
food of the great body of the people in Europe. 
There was not as much variety in the food of the people then, as 
there is now. The potato was introduced into Britain from America 
in 1586 and grown that year on the estate of Sir Walter Raleigh in 
Ireland, near Cork, but this valuable tuber came very slowly into use. 
In 1663, seventy years later, the more general growth of the potato as 
food for the people was strongly urged by the Royal Society of London, 
but even that important endorsement did not bring it rapidly into 
favour, and not much more than a century has elapsed since its cultiva- 
tion on a large scale has been general. It was not until the reign of 
Henry VIII that carrots and other edible roots and plants began to be 
cultivated in England. Prior to this the small quantities of vegetables 
used, were imported from Holland and Flanders. Hume in his History 
of England, speaking of this period, says that Queen Catharine when she 
wanted a salad was obliged to dispatch a messenger to Holland to secure 
the necessary material. 
Early in the 16th century, following the invention of printing and 
the revival of learning, agriculture partook of the general awakening and 
during the course of this century, several important treatises on the sub- 
ject appeared, written by men who engaged eagerly in this neglected and 
hitherto despised occupation. The information thus given did not, 
however, produce a rapid change. Up to the middle of the 17th century 
it is said to have been a common practice, to sow successive crops of 
grain on the same land until it was utterly exhausted, and then to leave 
it foul with weeds to recover some measure of its fertility by an indefinite 
period of rest. 
During the latter part of the same century the rotation of crops 
began to be practised under the name of alternate husbandry, and before 
the end of that century, great improvement had taken place, not only in 
the methods adopted for the growing of crops, but also in the quality 
and breeding of cattle and sheep. The value to subsequent crops of the 
ploughing under of clover to enrich the soil was also known and more 
or less practised at this early period. 
One of the great burdens which rested on agriculture in early times 
in Great Britain was the levying of Purveyance. What was called the 
larger Purveyance involved the obligation on the nearest farmers to 
furnish at the current prices, provisions, carriages, etc., in time of war 
to the King’s armies, houses and castles. The smaller Purveyance 
included the furnishing of the necessary provisions for the household of 
