AGRICULTURE 



shire was very wealthy. In the Composition in 

 Lieu of Purveyance of 1593 the assessment of 

 the county was 



' << 

 20 lean oxen at z ijs. ^d. . 53 68 



200 muttons at 6s. \d. . 63 6 8 



" 6 13 4 



whereas Leicestershire was assessed at 489 and 

 Derbyshire at j^jo. 10 In the ship-money valua- 

 tion of 1636 not a very accurate assessment, 

 however Nottinghamshire came twenty-first in 

 the list of counties in comparative wealth, and 

 in the various assessments of the iyth century 

 occupied a still lower position, with the exception 

 of a poor-rate assessment in the later years of the 

 reign of Charles II, when it was seventeenth. 

 Gervase Markham, the well-known writer on 

 agriculture, a Nottinghamshire man, complained 

 bitterly of the unfair way in which he was 

 assessed to ship-money, saying he would sooner 

 have presented his head. 10 * 



The 1 7th century saw much progress in agri- 

 culture ; the turnip and artificial grasses were 

 brought from the Low Countries, then far ahead 

 of England in farming ; liming and marling 

 were revived, and implements greatly improved. 11 

 Rents probably increased six or eightfold, and 

 Sir William Davenant, an exception to the in- 

 accurate statisticians of the time, places the aver- 

 age rent of tillage at 5*. 6d., and of grass at 

 8s. 6d. an acre, though this is perhaps too high 

 an estimate. The rental of Lord Kingston's 

 estate in North Nottinghamshire for 1689 is in the 

 Rawlinson collection in the Bodleian Library, but 

 the rents, averaging iox. an acre, must not be 

 taken as representative, for much of the property 

 was meadow and pasture, the farm-houses were 

 excellent, in two of the parishes the tenants had 

 rights of common, and in Saundby and North 

 Wheatley the tenancies were tithe-free. There 

 was very little arable land let on the estate, three 

 small tenancies renting for 6s. 8d. an acre, and 

 apparently most of it was grazing-land for sheep. 

 Some of the pasture-land in Saundby was let at 

 14*., 15*. 6d., 161. 3<f., and even 18;. an acre, 

 perhaps an accommodation price, or an illus- 

 tration of the great difference then between 

 arable-land and grass-land. The largest farm, 

 Saundby Hall, was 607 acres, nearly all meadow 

 and pasture, let at a little more than 91. lod. an 

 acre. The cottages generally had small pieces 

 of land attached to them ; in Saundby Richard 

 Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of arable 

 . land for jC i 1 3* . 4^., Widow Johnson a cottage 

 and yard for 131. 4^.,William Daubney a cottage, 

 6 acres ofarable, and 5^ of pasture for ^7 1 8s. 6d. 

 A farm in Scrooby consisting of a messuage, 



10 Eden, State of the Poor, iii, cxiii. 

 101 Cal. S.P. Don. 1635-6, p. II. 



11 Thorold Rogers, Six Cents, of Work and Wages, 

 449. 



cottage, and 113 acres of arable, meadow, and 

 pasture, only rented for ^23. 



The difference in the price of corn in various 

 localities before noticed continued to compara- 

 tively modern times, showing clearly that there 

 was little improvement in the means of com- 

 munication. At Newark in 1692-3 wheat 

 was from 365. to 401. a quarter, while the Lon- 

 don average was 541. 9^., and at Brentford it 

 reached 76*. At Newark in the same year 

 barley was 22*. to 25*., malt 255. to 261. 8d., 

 oats 12s. to i6s., rye 28;. to 40*., beans 255. 4^. 

 to 285. Next year was a bad one, and wheat 

 almost everywhere was high, reaching 86s. at 

 Brentford, yet at Newark it was from 321. to 

 44/. In 1695-6 wool sold at the same market 

 for 36*. a tod of 28 lb., a high price, and the year 

 after for 24;., and at Nottingham in 1701-2 it 

 was i"js. 6d. Hay at Newark in 1695-6 was 

 131. 4^. a load, but it must have been of very 

 inferior quality, or it is another instance of the 

 isolation of towns at the time, for at Northampton 

 it was 355. to 401. At Nottingham from 1699 

 to 1701 hay was 405. a load, the load being 

 generally a ton of new, or 19^ cwt. of old hay. 12 



The 1 8th century was a period of great 

 changes in agriculture associated with five 

 honoured names, those of Jethro Tull, Lord 

 Townshend, Bakewell of Dishley, Arthur Young, 

 and Coke of Holkham, and through their im- 

 provements English farms instead of merely pro- 

 viding sufficient tor the farmer and his family 

 were converted into bread and meat manufac- 

 tories for the great industrial towns that sprung 

 up in the latter half of the century. At the 

 commencement of Young's career half England 

 was farmed, as it had been for centuries, on the 

 old open-field system, and this was one of the 

 obstacles to good farming that he set himself to 

 remove. In 1768 the country between Newark 

 and Tuxford when Young journeyed through it 

 was mostly inclosed, and appeared to him ' pretty 

 well cultivated.' Round Cromwell the land let 

 at from lOs. to 2Os. an acre, and farms were 

 mostly small, cropped on a three-course system 

 of (i) turnips ; (2) barley or oats ; (3) rye. Here 

 beans were sown broadcast and never hoed, with 

 the natural result of poor crops. At West Dray- 

 ton arable land was let at from ids. to 12*. an 

 acre, and grass at from 15;. to 20*., and here, 

 too, farms were small. At Bawtry Mr. Lyster 

 was making agricultural experiments, one of 

 which was the feeding of cabbages to cattle, by 

 no means a success, as the cattle ate them too 

 quickly for profit. Another experiment was the 

 cultivation of lucerne, recommended by Hartlib 

 a century before, which was cut thrice a year, 

 and used for soiling horses. 



In 1770 Young, when at Arnold, noticed 

 * some uncommon improvements lately carried 



11 Thorold Rogers, Hist, of 4gric. and Prices, vi, 



211. 



373 



