A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



shoddy was a comparative novelty, used for turnips 

 and wheat; so was guano, and nitrate of soda, 

 which had been a failure, and its fate was said to 

 be sealed. Every farmer now used the threshing- 

 machine instead of the flail, with a great saving 

 of expense, and on most large farms there were 

 fixed machines. Among implements then in 

 favour was the horse-rake, ' lately introduced from 

 Yorkshire,' and used for raking barley. 



The question of allotments for labourers was 

 then, as to-day, much discussed, and they were 

 looked on favourably by most people in the 

 county, not only as improving the condition of 

 the poor, but as relieving the classes above them 

 by diminishing pauperism. The Duke of New- 

 castle had in 1844 let 2,OOO allotments, chiefly 

 near the towns and villages, with most satisfac- 

 tory results. Wages were higher than in most 

 parts outside the county ; even with the then 

 depressed prices 2s. a day was given, and some- 

 times 2s. 3^., while at task work in summer a 

 man could earn 3*. ; cottage rents were from 

 2 los. to $ per annum. 



One of the greatest improvements of the first 

 half of the igth century was the Duke of Port- 

 land's water-meadows. These, extending in 

 1844 to 300 acres over a distance of 7 miles in 

 length, watered by the River Mann, had been 

 constructed at a cost of 40,000, and had raised 

 the annual value of the land enormously. The 

 net profit was then computed at nearly 12 an 

 acre a year, and they also conferred great benefit 

 on the arable land adjoining. The tract irrigated 

 was formerly a succession of barren hill-sides 

 covered with gorse and heath, the bottoms being 

 swamps filled with rushes. The water of the 

 Mann, charged with the sewage of Mansfield, 

 was confined within a new bed at a higher level 

 along the hillsides. The ground was then well 

 under-drained and cleared of inequalities, and 

 laid out for letting on and taking off the en- 

 riching waters. These, after flowing over the 

 surface of one side of the valley, were received 

 into a brook, from which some miles further down 

 they were passed over meadows on the opposite 

 side of the valley. The water was laid on at all 

 seasons of the year, and a barren waste converted 

 into rich meadow-land. Another great improve- 

 ment of the first half of the igth century was 

 the draining by means of steam power of the 

 6,000 acres of reclaimed bog-land, a portion of the 

 vast morass once known as the ' Level of Hatfield 

 Chase.' Previous to this the land, which had 

 never been cultivated before the beginning of the 

 century, was so boggy that in many parts no horse 

 could be used for ploughing it. In 1850 the 

 rich lands between Newark and Nottingham 

 ranged from 355. to 65$. an acre, and in the 

 neighbourhood of the latter town land was worth 

 as much as 4. an acre. 



On a farm of 300 acres 4 miles south of 

 Nottingham, the average wheat crop was 46 



bushels per acre, of barley 65, and of beans 42. 

 Swedes were generally 24 tons and mangolds 

 32 tons to the acre, these good crops being 

 obtained mainly by liberal supplies of dung and 

 shoddy. 



It was the custom on many of the larger farms 

 to provide the head man with a large-sized 

 cottage and garden, rent-free, he undertaking to 

 lodge and board the unmarried workmen. The 

 wages of this foreman were from 25 to 30 

 a year, and he was allowed is. a day for the 

 board of each man, with stated quantities of 

 milk, fuel, pork, and malt for himself and the 

 others yearly. The yearly wages for men 

 boarded either in this way or in the farm-house 

 were in 1861 from ^13 to 18, and the men 

 were generally well satisfied with either system. 

 Where the men had to ' find themselves,' wages 

 for the ordinary labourer in the same year on a 

 good farm were about 1 55 . a week and a quart 

 of table-beer a day, and a man with his family 

 had no difficulty in earning i a week. Cot- 

 tage rents were low, 2 12s. to 4. a year, the 

 lowest rents being paid on the large estates. As 

 an instance of the beneficial results flowing from 

 the alteration of the Poor Law system a village 

 containing 1,500 acres may be quoted where in 

 1836 the rates exceeded 2s. an acre, but in 

 1860 had decreased to 5^.; yet in Nottingham- 

 shire before the repeal of the old law there was a 

 general determination to find work for labourers, 

 and rely as little as possible on relief from the 

 rates. 



The soil of the ancient Forest of Sherwood is 

 as a rule a very light sandy loam, poor and hun- 

 gry, and forest farms are therefore characterized 

 by the extensive use of cake and artificial man- 

 ures to provide food for the crops. We will 

 take a large farm of 550 acres in the forest dis- 

 trict in 1868 as an example of farming there 

 when agriculture was extremely prosperous. 

 Only 2O acres were in grass, and the rotation 

 was the Norfolk four-course shift generally pre- 

 vailing in the forest, but subject to varieties 

 owing to land becoming turnip-sick, or to the 

 paucity of the grass, or to some of the land being 

 more adapted for wheat than for barley. For 

 wheat the land was manured with from 8 to 10 

 loads of farmyard manure per acre a short time 

 before ploughing, and the land was ploughed 

 4-| in. to 5 in. deep, pressed and sown broadcast 

 without delay with 9 or 10 pecks to the acre, 

 usually of ' Hunter's White.' There was gene- 

 rally a top dressing of i^ cwt. of guano, and 

 from 4 cwt, to 5 cwt. of salt in the spring, and 

 then the land was harrowed. Horse and hand- 

 hoeing was done by day work, or the latter let 

 at from 2s. to 3*. an acre. For harvest a large 

 number of extra labourers, including many 

 Irish, were employed, as many as ninety or a 

 hundred men being set to work at once. No 

 less than 130 acres would be devoted to roots, 



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