SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Farm is to be allowed 2s. for every wagon-load of dung or cinder-ash which 

 he should bring from Bury to lay on the lands. This allowance was, however, 

 only once claimed in 2 1 years, and in other cases the tenant was more pru- 

 dently given no option in the matter. This period of agriculture in Suffolk is 

 marked by a further considerable rise in the value of land. 



The largest estate in the county, [writes Arthur Young in 1794,] is supposed not to 

 exceed j^8,ooo, or j^8,500 a year .... there are three or four other estates which rise 

 above ;^5,000 a year, and about 30 others which are about ^^3,000 a year and upwards. 

 Under this are numbers of all sizes, but the most interesting circumstance is of a different 

 complexion. I mean the rich yeomanry as they were once called being numerous, farmers 

 occupying their own lands of a value rising from ;f lOO to ;^400 a year : a most valuable 

 set of men who havmg the means and the most powerful inducements to good husbandry 

 carry agriculture to a high degree of perfection."* 



The farms of largest size were to be found in the south-east sand district, 

 one of the best cultivated in England and a most profitable one to farm in. 

 The light soils were best understood : in the district of strong wet loam farms 

 were smaller and the fortunes made upon them ' comparatively inconsider- 

 able.'^'^ 



The gentry, like Arthur Young himself, took a leading part in the cul- 

 tivation of experimental crops and the improvement of grass lands. 



Land rents in Young's day were as follows : — 



I. </. 

 Strong or wet loam, per acre . . . . . , . .130 



Rich loam . . . . . . . . . . .140 



Maritime sand district . . . . . . . . .100 



Western » » .........50 



Fen 26 



In some districts were tracts letting at 20s. to 25J. per acre, and at even 

 higher rents, meadow land being highest of all."' In few counties had the 

 value of long leases been more conclusively proved ; the tenant-farmer, 

 secure in the investment of his money, had been active in the conversion of 

 warren and sheep walks into cultivated inclosures. In 1798, 100,000"* 

 acres of uninclosed waste still remained. A further obstacle to agricultural 

 progress also existed in some districts ; the greater part of the county was 

 freehold, but copyholds were still numerous and extensive, and often included 

 peculiar rights of commonage and pasture."* Young quotes an instance at 

 Troston on the borders of the western sand district, where open field lands, on 

 which the course consisted of one crop to two fallows, were left to weeds for 

 the flock of one farmer, he being by prescription the only person able to keep 

 sheep, and having even the right of sheep-feeding in many inclosed pastures 

 and meadows after the hay harvest."' Numerous Inclosure Acts at the close 

 of the 1 8th and early in the 19th century to a great extent obviated these 

 difficulties. For example, the parish of Coney Weston was inclosed by 

 Act of Parliament in 1777, and the land-rents immediately doubled."^ The 

 drainage of the fens was also pressed forward, and 14,000 acres in Burnt 

 Fen alone brought under cultivation."' 



"' Ge». View of Agric. of County ofSuff. (1794), Sect, iv, p. 14. 



"•Young, op. cit. 15. '" Ibid. 17. "* Ibid. 19. 



■"Ibid. 14. '"Ibid. 15. 



'"Ibid. 54. '"Ibid. 13. 



671 



