ENGLAND 



2041 



ENGLAND 



rural scenery its small, highly cultivated fields, 

 its blossoming hedges, its vine-grown cottages 

 and its beautiful trees. These scattered trees 

 about the farmlands now in large measure 

 take the place of the old luxuriant forests, for 

 land is too valuable to be left heavily wooded. 



Stock-Raising. Certain counties have so high 

 a proportion of grazing land that they are pop- 

 ularly known as "grass counties," and there 

 stock-raising is the most important branch of 

 agriculture. Some of the English breeds of 

 cattle, as Durham and Devonshire; of sheep, 

 as Southdown and Cotswold; and of pigs, as 

 Berkshire, are everywhere famous for their 

 excellence. England is a very large importer of 

 butter, largely from Denmark, for most of the 

 milk produced is needed to supply the demands 

 of the cities. 



Fisheries. An island kingdom should have 

 extensive fisheries, and England is noted for its 

 fishing industry. Billingsgate, London, is the 

 largest fish market in the world, and Billings- 

 gate fish-wives are credited with a vocabulary 

 all their own, so peculiarly rich in invective 

 that the word billingsgate has been adopted 

 throughout the world. Thither are sent the 

 great catches of herring, haddock, cod, plaice 

 and mackerel which are brought back by the 



fleets of ships that put out from Grimsby, Hull, 

 Yarmouth, Lowestoft and other fishing centers. 



Many of the fish are shipped alive, in tanks, 

 and reach the market as fresh as when they left 

 the sea. Literal fleets they are which bring 

 in these fish, the number of vessels of every 

 sort employed being in the neighborhood of 

 10,000. They do not confine themselves to the 

 shores near home, but find their way north- 

 ward to the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and 

 southward to the coast of Portugal to bring 

 home this only article of food which England 

 has in sufficient quantities without importing 

 any. At the outbreak of the War of the Na- 

 tions in 1914 it became apparent that the 

 fishing boats would run grave risks if they 

 followed their customary routes, but because 

 England needed the food-supply the fishermen 

 quite generally ignored the danger and held to 

 their tasks. 



Other Information. For the transportation 

 and communication, commerce, government 

 and religion of England, consult the respective 

 subtitles in the article GREAT BRITAIN. English 

 art is discussed under the titles PAINTING and 

 SCULPTURE; for the language and literature see 

 ENGLISH LANGUAGE; ENGLISH LITERATURE, and 

 the lists accompanying the latter topic. 



History of England 



In the Earliest Days. It is known .that 

 many, many centuries before there was any 

 written record, there were people living in Eng- 

 land, but they were not people whom the later 

 inhabitants would be glad to claim as ancestors. 

 Judged by the rough weapons and tools which 

 they left, they were but the rudest sort of 

 savages, dwelling in caves and living by hunt- 

 ing and fishing. But at length there came from 

 the continent of Europe a very different race, 

 the Celts, or Britons, who conquered the island 

 and made it their home. They knew how to 

 make instruments of bronze, instead of the 

 stone implements of the savages, and how to 

 till the soil; and it was not so very long before 

 they discovered the use of that most valuable 

 of the minerals, iron. They had a strange, 

 weird religion, and their priests, the Druids, 

 wielded a strong influence. 



The Coming of the Romans. When in the 

 course of his victories in Gaul Caesar came 

 to the northern coast, he could see across the 

 narrow channel the "white cliffs of Albion," and 

 there was born in him the determination to 

 cross over to the island and punish the people 



there who had been giving help to the Gauls 

 against the Romans. In 55 B. c., therefore, the 

 first Roman legions landed in Britain, and the 

 recorded history of the country began. See 

 CAESAR, CAIUS JULIUS. 



Not until the time of Claudius, however, 

 almost a century later, was there a serious 

 attempt to reduce Britain to the condition of 

 a Roman province, nor was the conquest really 

 finished until the time of Agricola. Even then 

 the whole island had not submitted, the people 

 north of the Firth of Forth and River Clyde 

 in Scotland never having come under the sway 

 of the conquerors. 



In some ways the period of Roman rule was 

 of advantage to the southern part of the island, 

 for the semi-barbarous Britons learned from 

 their conquerors certain of the arts of civiliza- 

 tion. Great roads, too, were constructed by the 

 Romans, also flourishing towns, and certain 

 little Briton villages were fortified and built up 

 into cities which to the present day retain their 

 importance as centers of population. One of 

 these little villages the Britons called by a 

 name which meant "Fort-on-the-pool" Llyn- 



