194 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 



squires." Many of them had prospered enough to buy theii' 

 holdings, and to add to them " numerous small estates of the 

 yeomanry." Nor is this surprising in vieAv of the productiveness 

 of their land under the Norfolk system of husbandry. At the end 

 of the eighteenth century the average annual number of hve-stock 

 sent from the county to Smithfield was 20,000 cattle and 30,000 

 sheep. It was also stated in 1795, that as much corn was exported 

 from the four Norfolk ports of Yarmouth, Lynn, Wells, and Blake- 

 ney, as was sent abroad from the whole of the rest of England. In 

 Leicestershire, again, " yeomanry of the higher class " abounded. 

 " Men cultivating their own estates of two, three, four or five 

 hundreds a year are thickly scattered over almost every part of 

 the country " ; they had " travelled much and mixed constantly 

 \^ith one another." In both Leicestershire and Norfolk the special 

 branches of farming which were generally followed brought agri- 

 culturists into contact with their rivals, compelled them to be 

 wide-awake, and sharpened their intelhgence. Both were occupied 

 in fattening stock for to\ATi markets, the Leicestershire men on 

 pasture breeding their own stock, the Norfolk farmers on arable 

 land buying their cattle from Scottish drovers. In one important 

 respect there was a wide difference in their development. In Nor- 

 folk, great landowners, Hke Lord Townshend and, later. Coke of 

 Norfolk, took the lead in improvement, tested for the benefit of 

 their tenants the value of the new arable methods, encouraged them 

 by long leases to follow their example, and by high rents made 

 imitation compulsory. In Leicestershire, on the other hand, large 

 landlords were few and had given no lead ; the example was set by 

 large tenant-farmers or substantial yeomen. 



Other counties had adopted other useful practices which had 

 scarcely spread beyond their borders. Thus Lancashire excelled 

 in the cultivation of potatoes ; Middlesex was celebrated for the 

 art and practice of haymaking ; Wiltshire for the irrigation and 

 treatment of water-meadows ; Cheshire for its management of 

 dairy produce ; Yorkshire farmers round Sheffield had tested the 

 value of bone-dust, many years before the value of the manure 

 was known in other districts. But there is some evidence that 

 other counties had rather fallen back than advanced. This is 

 especiallj^ true of Cambridgeshire, which enjoyed the reputation of 

 being the worst cultivated county in England. It wiU probably be 

 true to say that the country as a whole had made no general advance 



