142 EVIDENCES AS TO DATE OF 







On the other hand Gooch, in his Agriculture of Oxford, 

 mentions many small proprietors, particularly in the open 

 fields, 1 and Mayor, writing in 1808, says one-third of the 

 county of Berks, is occupied by proprietors. Boys, speaking 

 of Kent in 1803, declares that the number of yeomanry 

 seems annually on the increase, by the estates which are 

 divided and sold by the occupiers, and adds that, of ten 

 farms which were in the hands of tenants in 1771 nine 

 were by 1803 owned by their occupiers, two of whom 

 were old tenants. He further declares that no description 

 of persons can afford to give so much money for land as 

 those who buy it for their own occupation, 2 a statement 

 which is, I daresay, correct enough if he means that an 

 owner who tills his own land can get a greater return 

 from it than one who lets it. 



Marshall, 1790, also draws attention to this characteristic 

 of the Kentish yeoman, who bought land when farming 

 was profitable. But when he goes on to contrast the con- 

 duct of the Norfolk yeoman and to declare ' that many, 

 seeing men who.n they lately held their inferiors raised by 

 an excessive profit which had been recently made by farm- 

 ing, became dissatisfied with the homeliness of their 

 situation and sold their comparatively small patrimonies 

 in order that they might agreeably with the fashion or 

 frenzy of the day become great farmers', I regret to say 

 that my evidence, so far as it goes, does not support him. 

 For in Table XII you will see that between 1792-1814 

 the numbers of the yeomen are nearly doubled, though thei 

 is a decrease in the number of owners who are letting theii 

 farms. However, these Norfolk statistics are not ver 

 complete. They come only from thirteen parishes thei 

 are 736 in Norfolk ; and besides, you see that the perk 



- a Rae, Contemporary Review, 1883, p. 551 ; cf. also Tuke, N. Riding 

 electors, p. 28. 

 2 Boys, Kent, p. 27, quoted Contemporary Review, 44, p. 549. 



