Agricultural Revolution 19 



third or fourth year 1 ; whereas in the eighteenth century every well- 

 educated and intelligent farmer had long since given up fallowing in 

 favour of a proper rotation of crops with regular manuring. On the 

 unenclosed fields turnip-crops could not be introduced, nor indeed 

 any system which depended on the rotation of crops*. Nor was 

 drill-husbandry in use 3 , nor drainage 4 . Naturally, with such extensive 

 methods of cultivation, the crops obtained were extremely poor 5 , 

 whereas the cost of production was high, in consequence of the 

 expense entailed by the system of intermixture. Farmers holding 

 as much as 100 acres might have nowhere more than two or three 

 acres lying together 6 . The whole system was only possible so long 

 as no great importance was attributed to the earning of high profits 

 on the corn-crops. That is to say that in the eighteenth century it 

 was bound up with the small farm system 7 , in which not corn-growing 

 but live-stock held the first place. The small farmers cared for the 

 rights of common as enabling them to breed or to fatten a larger 

 number of cows or poultry, while the corn grown on the open fields 

 sufficed to cover their own needs. But when it became a question of 

 getting large corn-crops and decreasing the live-stock kept, the old 

 common-field system must have been felt as a serious handicap. 



However, a considerable number of small farmers were able to 

 follow the general tendency and to increase their production of corn. 

 But it soon became evident that corn-growing was best done upon 

 a large scale. Arthur Young and others showed that the large 

 farmer needed fewer plough-horses or oxen in proportion than 

 the small farmer 8 ; and it was remarked that as a fact when several 

 small farms were transformed into one large farm fewer beasts were 



1 Second Report on the High Price of Provisions, 1801, p. 135. 



2 Prothero, op. cit. p. 65. 



3 Th. Stone, An Essay on Agriculture, Lynn, 1785, p. 61. 



4 Prothero, op. cit. p. 66 ; J. Anderson, A General View of the Agriculture of Aberdeen- 

 shire, Edinburgh, 1794, p. 51. 



5 Donaldson was of opinion that the perpetual corn-crops taken on the unenclosed fields 

 made them incapable of producing any profitable crops at all, op. cit. p. 58. See also 

 Kent, op. cit. p. 102. 



6 Stone, op. cit. p. 58 ; and Observations on a Pamphlet entitled an Enquiry into the 

 Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from Bills of Enclosure, Shrewsbury, 1781, p. 15. 



7 Th. Robertson, Outline of the General Report upon the Size of Farms, Edinburgh, 

 1796, p. 38: "The common fields, which are so frequent and extensive, are naturally 

 destined for small farms." 



8 Arthur Young, Rural Economy, 1773, p. 12; and so also his Farmer's Letters, 

 pp. 129-31, and p. 123; H. Home (Lord Kames), The Gentleman Farmer, Edinburgh, 

 1776, VoL I, pp. 270 ff. ; and A. Hunter, Georgical Essays, York, 1803, Vol. IV, Essay XXIII. 

 Cp. also Pitt, op. cit. p. 25; and Arbuthnot, op. cit. pp. 5-7. 



