PREFACE 



To those and they are now many who are earnestly 

 seeking for a true solution of our many agricultural 

 problems, industrial, social and political, the study of 

 the conditions prevailing in rural England from the 

 earliest historical times and of the vicissitudes, both 

 of our greatest national industry and of the classes 

 engaged in it, is an indispensable equipment. By- 

 such investigation alone can the difficulties of these 

 problems be appreciated, blunders in rural policy be 

 avoided, and antagonistic interests be reconciled. It 

 will be rendered easy and attractive by a careful 

 perusal of this little book, which skilfully summarizes 

 the chief features of English village life and English 

 agricultural history from Anglo-Saxon times down to 

 the XXth century. And a chequered and kaleidoscopic 

 history it is, replete with picturesque incident, remark- 

 able in the vicissitudes of fortune of both rural industry 

 and rural population, and, as regards the peasant and 

 (more recently) the agricultural labourer, infinitely 

 pathetic and at times tragic. Round this pathetic figure 



