2 SELF-SUFFICING FARMING 



sides of tlie Wiltshire and Sussex downs are scored with 

 ' lynches,' terraces running horizontally, one above the 

 other, along the slopes. Local tradition attributes their 

 formation to spade husbandry. Marshall, in 1797, sug- 

 gested, but only to reject, the operation of the plough ; 

 recently Mr. Seebohm has revived the same theory. 

 Whichever view of their origin is correct, they indelibly 

 indicate the sites of the earliest settlements, and the 

 nature of the soil first selected for tillage. 



' Wild field-grass ' husbandry is a more primitive form 

 of agriculture than that practised by village communities. 

 Of both systems co-ownership and co-tillage are charac- 

 teristic. The essential diiference lay in this. In the com- 

 mon fields of the village, pasturage and tillage are perma- 

 nently separated; grass-land always remains meadow or 

 pasture ; it is never broken up for tillage. Under the more 

 primitive form fresh tracts of grass were successively taken 

 in, ploughed, and tilled for corn. As the soil became 

 •exhausted they reverted to pasture. Such a practice may 

 belong to some portions of the Celtic race, or to the 

 nomadic stage of civilisation, the period when ' arva per 

 annos mutant et superest ager.' In 1804 Marshall traced 

 the ' wild field-grass ' system in the south-western counties. 

 In some districts, lords of the manor enjoyed rights of letting 

 portions of the grass commons to be ploughed up, culti- 

 Tated for corn, and after two years thrown back into pasture. 

 And over the whole country from the Tamar to the eastern 

 border of Dorsetshire he found open commons, such as the 

 wide expanse of Yarcombe and the hills above Bridport, 

 which from time immemorial had never known the plough, 

 distinctly marked with the ridge and furrow. Other usages 

 of the rural population, which a century ago were more 

 peculiar to the south-west of England, suggest that in this 



