THE AGRICULTURE OF THE PAST. 385 



structed of stones rudely placed together. Strabo even writes of their 

 Hocks and herds ; and Cresar notes that the cattle were in abundance. 



That most of the pastures of England have, in former times, been under 

 tillage, will be seen by every one practised in agriculture who examines 

 the ridges, furrows, banks, roadways, landmarks, cuttings, &c., still to be 

 found upon them. In many instances, the carefully rounded lands, the 

 highly raised headlands, the large amount of soil worked from higher to 

 lower ground, and the marks of cultivation terminating at points where 

 occasional floods limited the application of the ground to the growth of 

 grain, are unmistakable evidences of the plough having for ages been at 

 work, and the former application of the land to growing grain. 



Be all this as it may, whatever improvement agriculture had made from 

 the time of the Roman invasion till the conquest of the country by the 

 Jo-Saxons, that improvement was not sustained during the period 

 when the conquerors held the sway. Fond of the chase, the Anglo-Saxons 

 : ised the arts of tillage, and deemed them at best the fitting employ - 

 ment of slaves and women. The Britons gradually sunk, therefore, into 

 a depressed condition ; and with it came the loss of the knowledge of farin- 

 as taught them by, or obtained chiefly from, an intercourse with the 

 Romans. Some idea of their wretched condition may be derived from the 

 fact that associations were formed to enable a yoke of oxen and a plough 

 to be kept for the united benefit of the members. At this period it wa^ 

 enacted that " no man should undertake to guide a plough who could not 

 iiid that the driver should make the ropes of twisted willows 

 with which it was drawn. 



the state of matters improved, and the condition of the hus- 

 Iman mu<-h ameliorated, by the change of masters which took place 

 in the Norman Invasion and Conquest; on the contrary, they w< 



I much WMI-S... Large tracts of land which bore comparatively good 

 irrain, were on various pretences laid waste, and converted into 

 nd limiting grounds. 



not be supposed that tin- Normans brought with then 



thin^ l.ut tip on, and the love of war and the chase, M;m\ 



il acquainted with farming, and had brought with tie 



; ractice, 



"f tidal land eliimed under t heir superintend, 



'id mar-hy land- were tak-n in ly them ; and while the soil, thus 

 from lianvn: made to yield its prod n. 't'th 



LTivatU 'd 1>\ their pain-tak;- 



