BRITISH AND FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 165 



of space which so impresses the Englishman accustomed 

 to wide headlands, straggling fences, and hedgerow timber. 

 Yet there can be little doubt, it seems to me, that this 

 system of farming is essentially a survival from the time 

 of the occupation of Gaul by the Romans, who probably 

 introduced the three-field course into France, as they 

 apparently did into Germany and this country. Dr. 

 Seebohm 1 has pointed out that the homage of Hitchin 

 Manor presented that the common fields within the town- 

 ship had immemorially been, and ought to be, kept in 

 three successive seasons of (1) tilth grain, (2) etch grain, 

 and (3) fallow — the first meaning winter corn and the 

 second spring corn. The word " etch," or " eddish," 

 which remains in use in many districts of England to this 

 day, occurs frequently in Tusser, thus — under directions 

 for October — 



Seed first go fetch 

 For edish or etch, 

 White wheat, if ye please, 

 Sow now upon pease. 



In the sixteenth century, when Tusser wrote, there 

 appears to have been a diversity of practice, as he 

 recognises wheat after a pulse crop, although he recom- 

 mends a fallow : — 



White wheat upon pease-etch doth grow as he would, 

 But fallow is best if we did as we should. 



It appears, then, that for centuries a three- (or by omitting 

 the fallow) a two-field course was the prevailing system 

 in Great Britain, and it was probably not until the general 

 introduction of the turnip that the four-course, or Norfolk 

 system, with local modifications thereof, broke away 

 from the old traditions and altered farm practice generally. 

 It would seem that in France the three-course system 

 with the fallow must have been persisted in extensively, 

 having regard to the fact that nearly one-eighth of the 



1 " The English Village Community," 4th edition, pp. 376 et seq. 



