The Husbandry of the Period. 243 



Thus, what Tull had originated others carried forward and 

 perfected ; and when we condemn him for trying to drive 

 manure out of field culture, we must not forget that he largely 

 contributed towards the introduction of the turnip into it. 



Young,^ the writer who summed up Tull's services in the 

 passage first quoted, has a happy knack of enforcing his views 

 of agriculture on his brethren of the plough by the irresistible 

 process of appealing to their pockets. Thus, when he wished 

 to demonstrate the merits of the four- course system over that 

 generally practised, he put both to the severe test of figures; 

 and while he thus proved the superiority of the former, he at 

 the same time pointed out the advantages of keeping accounts. 

 He asked his readers to strike a happy mean between the com- 

 plicated methods of the merchant and the slovenly practice of 

 the waste book ordinarily used by the farmer. What the 

 husbandman required to know was the profit and loss on each 

 branch of his industry. Young seems from his description to 

 have had in his mind's eye a combined cash-book and ledger. 

 Whether the division of the latter's headings according to 

 fields is preferable to the ordinary course pursued at the 

 present day is a moot question ; but his more immediate pur- 

 pose was to get the farmer to see for himself that the profits 

 derivable from a system of cropping ^ consisting of turnips, 

 barley, clover, and wheat, were considerably more than those 

 from a succession of fallow, wheat, barley, and oats. " The 

 farmer finds," he says, "that a ten-acred close thrown into 

 the first system has paid him, at the end of eight years, 

 £126 18s. 4d, and that other ten acres thrown into the second 

 system has paid him in that time no more than £68 Vos. 2c?." 

 Earlier in these pages, Young has been cited as the champion 

 of large farming. It is now interesting to notice that he was 

 equally alive to the necessity of smaller holdings as starting- 



1 Farmer's Kalendar, Preface. By an experienced Farmer (A. Young). 

 1771. 



* This, of course, is the four-course system. I am not convinced that 

 it was by any means general in Young's earlier days. There was a 

 rotation, but more likely a six or five course. The latter we shall shortly 

 describe as practised on tlie large farms of the Holkliam estate. 



