Agricultural Revolution 33 



Small Landowner (already quoted) seems also to have overlooked this 

 point. He has attempted to throw new light on the subject by a study 

 of the Land Tax Assessments. Students will be grateful for his labours ; 

 but still the results he has arrived at do not add very greatly to our 

 knowledge. He himself warns the reader against attributing over-much 

 importance to his statistical results. Their basis is too limited to 

 admit of the deduction of general conclusions. Where he makes use 

 of other sources (Surveys, previous writers, etc.) he falls into the same 

 error as Dr Hasbach, namely that of failing to distinguish between the 

 size of the holdings concerned. The same is true of Mr H. L. Gray's 

 article Yeoman Farming in Oxfordshire, in the Quarterly Journal of 

 Economics, 1910, pp. 293 ff. He also uses the Land Tax Assessments, 

 and he further makes use of the Enclosure Awards and manorial 

 surveys. But he too includes in his researches yeomen owning holdings 

 of very various extent and, therefore, from an economic standpoint, of 

 quite heterogeneous character. He writes, e.g. (p. 325) " Enclosure 

 after 1785 did not fatally affect yeomen with holdings of from two 

 acres to 300 acres." The yeomen of Kent, whom Mr Johnson cites on 

 p. 142 of his book, were undoubtedly most of them medium or large 

 holders, and not to be identified with the " small yeomen " of other 

 counties 1 : and the data which he quotes from Dr Rae are open to the 

 same objection 2 . When this necessary distinction is borne in mind, 

 it will be realised that very little of the material available can be 

 definitely interpreted of the small yeoman or small freeholder class. 

 The ambiguity, from an economic point of view, of the word "yeoman" 

 will, it may be feared, be a permanent hindrance to the final solution 

 of the obscure problem in question. 



Of course there were cases in which the yeoman sold, yet did not 

 become a farmer. Some sold their estates in order to invest in an 

 industrial undertaking : but as this is only reported from Lancashire 3 

 it would seem that the movement in this direction was limited to those 

 districts where manufactures were rapidly developing. Again, in some 

 cases the yeoman sought to take advantage of the rise in the price of 

 land by mortgaging his property. But on this point too there is 

 little evidence, so that it does not appear to have been a common 

 proceeding 4 . As a rule, the property was sold and its owner became 

 a tenant-farmer. His estate was thrown together with others to form 



1 Cp. Hasbach, in Archivfur Sozialwissenschaft, andxxiv, I, p. 15. 



2 Cp. Levy in Conrad's Jahrbiichern, 1903, pp. 148 f., and J. D. Rogers in Palgrave's 

 Dictionary, Vol. ill, p. 886. 



3 J. Holt, A General View of the Agriculture of Lancashire, 1794, p. ia. 



4 Levy, Der Untergang etc., p. 159. 



