20 MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 



oats, peas, and vetches. It forms a regular crop at Horn- 

 church. 



Hemp was cultivated to some extent. The seed is fre- 

 quently entered, but no record of the crop or of its desti- 

 nation is to be found. I am disposed to think that it was 

 employed for the home manufacture of ropes, but I have 

 never seen any entry of payment for such kind of labour. 

 It may have been hackled and woven by the servants of the 

 farm, the labour forming part of the regular v/ork expected 

 from them. It could not, I am certain, have been sold with- 

 out being entered. On one occasion it is quoted as having 

 been purchased to feed pigs, a hazardous experiment ! 



The question, whether, within the records of historical 

 times, any change in the ordinary temperature of these 

 islands can be certainly traced, is one which cannot but in- 

 terest those who enquire into the facts and conditions of 

 medieval agriculture. Geological periods, it would seem, 

 though certainly numerous, are separated by prodigious dis- 

 tances, and cover vast spaces of time. Changes, though real, 

 are hardly perceptible, because procession or retrogression, 

 submergence or upheaval, are too slow for our unassisted 

 powers of observation, and need, therefore, that these powers 

 should be exercised in the most cautious manner, and be 

 sustained by the aid of the most exact appliances. Unless, 

 therefore, we had the means of measuring changes almost 

 atomic, which modern science possesses, we could do no more 

 than guess at any alteration in the seasons, or any intensity 

 or diminution of the aggregate amount of solar heat, which 

 six hundred years ago might have affected these islands. 



It would seem that if any change, to judge from the evi- 

 dence before us, has taken place in the physical constitution 

 of this country within the last six hundred years, it may be 

 inferred to consist in a slight diminution of the annual heat. 



I take it for granted that effective drainage heightens and 

 that standing water lessens the average temperature. I do 

 not doubt that far more land was wet in the thirteenth than 



