42 AGKICULTURE IN MODERN EUROPE. 



been slower than in other countries. In 1273 the hay maker 

 got 2Jd. an acre; 2Jd. in 1400, with board; women laborers 8d. 

 and fed themselves. The price for washing and shearing sheep 

 was a penny a score; in twenty years sixteen were sheared for 

 a penny, then ten, and finally eight. We read of one farmer 

 at about the year 1500 who gave his women shearers IJd. a day 

 and fed them. And yet Joseph Arch tells us that agricultural 

 labor, all things considered, fared better then than now. 



The price of meat and dairy products in England makes 

 cattle raising more profitable than grain. Some one has said, 

 and it is very near the truth, that a failure of the turnip crop 

 for two years would bankrupt England. Agriculture is there 

 fore growing in importance hourly, and so are all questions 

 involved in the feeding of that vast and rapidly increasing pop 

 ulation. England is increasing her acreage as fast as she can, 

 by reclamation, and reducing her pasturage. The culture of 

 sainfoin, a crop good for six or seven years, has proved advan 

 tageous, also of buckwheat for fodder. 



In 1789, 9,000,000 acres were cultivated; in 1869, 36,100,153; 

 in 1870, 46,177,370, of which 11,755,053 acres were devoted to 

 wheat culture. How far that goes in feeding the English mill 

 ions is best seen by a statement of the imports of wheat and 

 flour from the United States for fifteen years. 



Year. Cwt. Wheat. Cwt. Flour. 



1856 , 5,542,983 2,892,518 



1857 2,819,934 1,464,867 



1858 2,576,791 1,764,795 



1859 159,926 216,462 



1860 6,479,339 2,254,322 



1861 . . . . 10,866,891 3,794,865 



1862 -...- 16,140,670 4,449,534 



1863 8,704,401 2,531,822 



1864 . .... 7,895,015 1,745,933 



1865 1,177,618 256,769 



1866 635,239 280,792 



1867 4,188,013 722,976 



1888 5,908,149 676,192 



1869 13,181,507 1,711,000 



1870 12,372,176 2,154,751 



England cannot afford to raise her breadstuff s. She is com 

 pelled to make meat, hence the great preponderance of her 

 agricultural work must be in the direction of hay and root crops. 

 In these she is eminently successful. 



Of Scotch farming, it may be said that it has made great 



