ENGLAND. (AGRICULTURE.) 



centuries, a farm consisting of ten hides, or plough 

 lands, was to pay the following rent, viz., ten casks 

 of honey, three hundred loaves of bread, twelve 

 casks of strong ale, thirty casks of small ale, two 

 oxen, ten wethers, ten geese, twenty hens, ten 

 cheeses, one cask of butter, five salmon, twenty 

 pounds of forage, and one hundred eels. (JVilkins, 

 Leges Saxon., p. 25.) The greatest part of the 

 crown lands in every county was farmed in this man- 

 ner by ceorls or farmers, who in general appear to 

 have been freemen and soldiers. 



That the conquest of England by the Normans 

 contributed to the improvement of agriculture is 

 undeniable, for by that event many thousands of hus- 

 bandmen, from the fertile and well cultivated plains 

 of Flanders, France, and Normandy, settled in this 

 island, obtained estates or farms, and employed the 

 same methods in the cultivation of them that they 

 liad used in their native country. 



The implements of husbandry, in this period, were 

 of the same kind with those that are employed at 

 present, though all of them, no doubt, much less per- 

 fect in their construction. 



The various operations of husbandry, as manuring, 

 ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, 

 winnowing, &c., are incidentally mentioned by the 

 writers of this period ; but it is impossible to collect 

 from them a distinct account of the manner in which 

 these operations were performed. 



Agriculture in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 

 turies, it appears, was carried on with vigour. Sir 

 John Fortescue, in a work in praise of the English 

 laws, mentions the progress that had been made in 

 planting hedges and hedge-row trees before the end 

 of tlie fourteenth century. Judge Fortescue wrote 

 his Legum Anglice in the fifteenth century, but it was 

 not published till the reign of Henry VIII. In the 

 law book called Fleta (supposed to have been written 

 by some lawyers, prisoners in the Fleet, in 1340), very 

 particular directions are given as to the various opera- 

 tions of husbandry. This work, as well as others of 

 the kind, is written in Latin, and even the farming 

 accounts were in those days kept in that language, 

 as they still are in the greater part of Hungary. 



During the greater part of the fifteenth century 

 England was engaged in civil wars, and agriculture, 

 as well as other arts, declined. The labourers, called 

 from the plough by royal proclamation or the man- 

 dates of their lords, perished in battle, or by accident 

 and fatigue, in immense numbers. Labour rose in 

 price notwithstanding various laws for its limitation, 

 and this at last produced a memorable revolution in 

 the state of agriculture, which made a mighty noise 

 for many years. The prelates, barons, and other 

 great proprietors of land, kept extensive tracts 

 around their castles, which were called their demesne 

 lands, in their own immediate possession, and culti- 

 vated them by their villains, and by hired servants, 

 under the direction of their bailiffs. But these great 

 landholders having often led their followers into the 

 fields of war, their numbers were gradually diminish- 

 ed, and hired servants could not be procured on rea- 

 sonable terms. This obliged the prelates, lords, and 

 gentlemen to enclose the lands around their castles, 

 and to convert them into pasture grounds. This 

 practice of enclosing became very general in England 

 about the middle or this period, and occasioned^ pro- 

 digious clamours from those who mistook the effect 

 of depopulation for its cause. 



The habit of enclosing lands and converting them 

 to pasture continued after the cause had ceased, and 

 an act was passed to stop its progress in the begin- 

 ning of the reign of Henry VII. The dearths of 

 this period furnish another proof of the low state of 

 Bgriculture. Wheat in 1437 and 1438 rose from 4s 



or 4*. 6rf., the ordinary price per quarter, to \. 6*. 

 8d., equivalent to 13 6*. 8d. of our money. Stovr 

 observes that, in these extremities, the common 

 people endeavoured to preserve their wretched lives 

 by drying the roots of herbs and converting them 

 into a kind of bread. Land in those days was sold 

 at ten years' purchase, so great was the insecurity 

 of possession. 



From the accession of Henry VII. in 1485, to 

 nearly the middle of the seventeenth century, England 

 enjoyed peace. To remove the effects of former 

 wars, however, required a considerable time. The 

 high price of labour, and the conversion of so much 

 land to tillage, gave rise to different impolitic statutes, 

 prohibiting the exportation of corn ; while a great 

 demand was created for wool by the manufactures of 

 the Netherlands, which tended to enhance the value 

 of pasture lands, and depopulate the country. The 

 flocks of individuals, in these times, sometimes ex- 

 ceeded twenty thousand, and an act was passed by 

 Henry VIII., restricting them to a tenth of that num- 

 ber, apparently eluded from the partial exception of 

 hereditary opulence. Had the restraints imposed on 

 the exportation of corn been transferred to wool, the 

 internal consumption would have soon regulated the 

 respective prices of those articles ; the proportion 

 between arable and pasture lands would soon have 

 been adjusted, and the declining cultivation of the 

 country restored. An improved cultivation was 

 reserved, however, for a future period, when persecu- 

 tion extirpated manufactures from the Netherlands ; 

 then, when the exportation of English wool had sub- 

 sided, and its price diminished, the farmer or land- 

 holder, disappointed of his former exuberant profits, 

 discovered the necessity of resuming the plough, and 

 restoring his pastures to culture. 



Agriculture, soon after the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century, partook of the general improvement 

 which followed the invention of the art of printing, 

 the revival of literature, and the more settled autho- 

 rity of government; and, instead of the occasional 

 notices of historians, we can now refer to regular 

 treatises, written by men who engaged eagerly in 

 this neglected, and hitherto degraded, occupation. 



The culture of hops was either introduced or 

 revived early in the reign of Henry VIII.; and that 

 of flax was attempted, but without success, though 

 enforced by law. (Holins/tead, p. 110, 111.; 24 Hen. 

 8. c. 4.) The legislature at tliat time endeavoured 

 to execute, by means of penalties, those rational 

 improvements which have since been fostered and 

 cherished by bounties ; or, what is better, pursued 

 from the common motive of self-interest. 



The breeding of horses was now much encouraged. 

 To the passion of the age, and the predilection of 

 the monarch for splendid tournaments, may be attri- 

 buted the attention bestowed on a breed of horses of 

 a strength and stature adapted to the weight of the 

 complicated panoply with which the knight and his 

 courser were both invested. Statutes of a singular 

 nature were enacted, allotting for deer parks a certain 

 proportion of breeding mares, and enjoining, not the 

 prelates and nobles only, but those whose wives wore 

 velvet bonnets, to have stallions of a certain size for 

 their saddle. The legal standard was fifteen hands 

 in horses, thirteen in mares, and " unlikely tits " were, 

 without distinction, consigned to execution. (27 Hen. 

 8. cap. 6.; 36 Hen. 8. cap. 13. See Harrington's 

 Observations on the Statutes, p. 443.) James the 

 Fourth of Scotland, with more propriety, imported 

 horses from foreign countries in order to improve the 

 degenerate breed of his own. (Pitscottie, p. 153.) 

 The cultivation of grasses for their winter provender 

 was still unknown ; nor were asses propagated in 

 E;ijrliuid till a subsequent period. (Holmsluad, 



