236 History of the English Landed Interest. 



and by his invention of the horse hoe and drill had, without 

 realising the fact, originated the famous Norfolk rotation of 

 cropping. By a strange irony of fate he was destined to ignore 

 the very essence of its existence, the basis of its success, and 

 the cause of its ultimate popularity. The fact, recognised by 

 most agricultural authorities, but strenuously opposed by Tull,^ 

 that a long-continued cultivation of one crop exhausts soils 

 much faster than a variation of plants, created a general de- 

 mand for a rotation in cropping. It must be borne in mind 

 that, had Tull admitted that land can be ultimately worn out 

 and rendered barren, he would have been forced to reconsider 

 that pronounced attitude which he had assumed in opposition 

 to manuring. When once he had acknowledged the necessity 

 for dung in his horse-hoeing husbandry, his chief aim — viz., 

 to minimise the expenses of production — would have been 

 well-nigh defeated. 



By substituting mechanical labour for manure, Tull's system 

 showed a marked increase in the profits of the farm balance 

 sheet ; and advocates of the process delighted to figure out a 

 comparison of the expenditure in the old and new husbandry, 

 whereby they proved that the profits of the former more than 

 doubled those of the latter.^ On the other hand, when Tull 

 contested the main advantage popularly ascribed to the Nor- 

 folk rotation of cropping, he unconsciously cut the ground 

 from under the chief argument in favour of his own system. 

 During the latter half of the century an increase in population, 

 a series of bad harvests, and the French war had combined to 

 send cereals up to famine prices in the home markets. For 

 the first time in English history the importation of wheat 

 exceeded its exportation ; and a country which a little while 

 before had been termed by a Frenchman^ the granary of 

 Europe, had suddenly ceased to be self-supporting. Farmers 

 were therefore getting too good prices for their wheat to care 

 to change it for some less lucrative crop, unless the alternations 

 of clover and turnips could be proved of ultimate benefit to 



^ Horse-hoeing Husbandry, ch. xiv. J. Tull. 



" Id. Ibid. Vide Preface to the Third Edition, 1751. 



' M. de Lavergne. 



