CHAPTER II. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 

 CENTURIES. 



THE principal authorities for the condition of English 

 agriculture during the last eighteen years of the sixteenth 

 century and the whole of the seventeenth are Norden, 

 Markham, Blith, Vaughan, Plattes, Hartlib, and Worlidge. 

 There are also many monographs bearing on this industry 

 in particular localities, and many suggestions that the dis- 

 putes between landlord and tenant, with the risk which the 

 latter ran by the former appropriating his improvements 

 and making him pay rent on his own outlay, might be met 

 by following the example set in the Low Countries. Tusser, 

 whose popularity had been and remained very great, died 

 in 1580. 



Throughout the whole of the seventeenth century, writers 

 on agriculture complain that the progress of English hus- 

 bandry was greatly hindered by the rapacity of landlords. 

 It seems that what they recognise is that tenants for terms 

 of years or for freeholds on lives, a favourite form of letting 

 land three centuries ago, were discouraged from making im- 

 provements, which might be very remunerative to them, 

 by the exactions of landowners on the expiry of the lease, 

 or on the renewal of a life interest. The form which this 

 reputed exaction took, was the demand of a considerable fine 

 from the tenant on renewal. Of course this fine could not 



