Agricultural Revolution 7 



night, and so succeeded in making profits out of a branch of farming 

 which appeared to bring little advantage when pursued on a large 

 scale 1 . 



Later, as the small cultivators disappeared, writers frequently 

 noticed that the large farmer simply would not be troubled with 

 trifles like butter, poultry and so forth, and that his wife was much 

 too fine to go to market, like the wife of the small farmer, "with a 

 basket of butter, pork, roasting-pigs, or poultry, on her arm 3 ." 



It was, in fact, not only in the production of meat and the lesser 

 agricultural products that the intensive interest bestowed on the 

 work by the little farmer or cottager seemed to give their holdings 

 the advantage over large farms worked by wage-labour. It was 

 also, and more particularly, in the marketing of such products. Here 

 the wives and daughters of the little landholders played a great 

 part. They themselves took the goods to market, or to their private 

 customers, and their personal business knowledge and interest was 

 a great factor in determining the prices they obtained. The wife 

 of the large farmer was by no means inclined to go to market in 

 person, much less to go round to customers' houses : and the business 

 could hardly be entrusted to the maid-servants 3 . So that here was 

 another reason why the large farmer was disinclined to trouble him- 

 self with dairy produce and the like, which he could not sell off once 

 and for all as he could his corn. It would however be a mistake to 

 suppose that the small farmers of the eighteenth century had produced 

 only for the local market. In spite of the unfavourable transport 

 conditions, it can be shown that in the eighteenth century (though it 

 is true that the authorities belong to the second half of the century) 

 meat, dairy produce and fruit and vegetables were all produced for 

 central markets. Thus Forbes, in 1778, states that to London and 

 other large towns "provisions are drawn from all parts of the country 4 ." 

 So, for example, London drew its butter mainly from Yorkshire, 



1 So e.g. T. Comber, Real Improvement in Agriculture, 1771, p. 40. 



8 Girdler, op. cit. p. 29. 



8 One writer says that the wives of the small cultivators regarded the poultry and other 

 lesser branches of production as entirely their concern. See A Sketch of a Plan, etc. p. 16. 

 So also C. Vancouver, A General View of the Agriculture of Devonshire, 1808, p. i n : 

 "It is bat common justice to say, that the industry and attention to business of the farmers' 

 wives and daughters, with the neatness displayed in all their market-ware, at Exeter and in 

 other large towns, are subjects deserving the highest praise. No labour or fatigue is spared 

 in reaching the market in time, be the distance what it may ; nor will any severity of weather 

 prevent them from their ordinary attendance." And Kent, op. cit. p. 113 : " His (the large 

 farmer's) wife... will not condescend to attend the market like the wives, and children, of 

 little farmers." 4 Forbes, op. cit. p. 153. 



