A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



The woods of Suffolk alone show any appreciable decrease in 1798 on 

 the valuation of former surveys^": there was no longer any scarcity of timber 

 as in the preceding century,and the ship-building industry had declined. 



There is some direct evidence that improved agriculture brought about 

 a shifting of population. Between 1770 and 1783 the population of 

 Hawstead increased by one-fifth, the farmers employed double the num- 

 ber of hands, and bestowed on the land double the former amount of 

 cultivation."" 



If the agrarian history of Suffolk shows it in the i6th century in the 

 forefront of the agricultural counties of England owing to the numbers of its 

 inclosures, in the 17th century through its growing trade with London in 

 corn and dairy-produce, in the i8th for the practice of scientific farming, 

 to the 1 9th belongs characteristically the growth of its most important modern 

 industry, the manufacture of agricultural implements and milling machinery. 



Already in Arthur Young's day much fertility in inventions of this kind 

 had been shown : he mentions numerous experimental drills and ploughs 

 which had been employed in various parts of the county, and a machine 

 called the Bear for cleansing river-bottoms.'" The detailed history of the 

 growth of the industry belongs elsewhere."'' 



The reigns of Elizabeth and James I, with their comparative security and 

 growing prosperity, probably represent the golden age as regards the life of 

 the Suffolk gentry : the evil days of the Civil War had not yet fallen on 

 them : the attractions of London had not given rise to the complaint of a 

 later date that Suffolk reaped no benefit of the revenues drawn from her 

 soil."' 



Reyce writes of the great hospitality and neighbourliness, of the 'frequent 

 interlacing in marriage ' of the county families, ' a practice much used at 

 this day,' also of their improvidence and lack of foresight."* ' The multi- 

 plicity of curious buildings ' strikes him, a great contrast to the low houses, 

 thick stoiie walls, small windows, and round hearth with a hole in the roof to 

 carry off the smoke, which the insecurity of life and property had formerly 

 rendered necessary. The Suffolk houses of his day, three or four stories high, 

 had thin walls of brick, stone, or timber, large light windows, square lofty 

 rooms, many small chimneys, roofs ' square and so slender that they are 

 enforced often to repair'"" — houses many of which at the present time are 

 in the occupation of tenant-farmers."' 



The scarcity of timber"^ (in part owing to the custom which now prevailed 

 of using nothing but oak in house-building "') obliged them to be ' spare of 

 stuff,' and ' that workman that can do his work with most beauty and least 

 charge (albeit not so strong) he is most required.' "' People began to set 

 store by the nature of the soil, the healthiness of the situation, the beauty of 

 the prospect : all these things have a definite market value in the many 

 descriptions of property in Suffolk which belong to this period. Many rich 



"' Young, op. cit. 47. "* CuUum, op. cit. 168. '" Young, op. cit. 31. 



"' See V.C.H. Suff. ii, 281 et seq. 



'" Young, jlpf. to Gen. Surv. of Agric. (1794), 85. "* Breviary, 60. 



'« Ibid. 50. "• Cf. Suckling, Hist, of Suff. ii, 222. 



'" Reyce, Breviary, 33. 



"° Harrison, Descr. of Engl. (ed. Withington), 197. 



"* Rejrce, Breviary, 50. 



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