CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 



' SELF-SUFFICING FARMING.* 



PAGE 



Light Soils the Sites of earliest Settlements — Nomadic Stage re- 

 presented in ' Wild-field-grass Husbandry ' of S.W. — Farming 

 of Village Commiinities : ' Garstons,' Arable Fields, Meadows, 

 Hams, Pastures — Traces of System at Present Day — Manors 

 imposed on Village Communities at Norman Conquest — Divi- 

 sions of Land and Classes on Mediteval Manors : Tillage, 

 Crops, Harvest, Implements, etc. — Progress of Agricultural 

 Classes illustrated fi-om Castle Combe 1 



CHAPTER II. 



FARMING FOR PROFIT. 



Social and Agricultural Crisis at Close of Tudor Period — Self- 

 sufficing Farming supplanted by Farming for Profit, Common 

 by Individual Ownership, Feudal Pietainers by Rent-paying 

 Tenants ; Pasture displaces Tillage, Sheep the Plough ; Com- 

 mons and Open Fields enclosed — Ruin of Small Commoners 

 and Labourers for Hire — Their Misery under the Tudors— 

 Illustrations of Methods by which Commons were enclosed . 17 



CHAPTER III. 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



Progress in Farming — Commencement of Agricultm-al Literature : 

 Fitzherbert and Tusser — Arrest of Progress during the Civil 

 War — Accumulation of New Sources of Agricultural Wealth : 

 Turnips, Artificial Grasses, Drainage, Emancipation of Land 

 from Feudal Tenures 29 



