42 TURNIP TOWNSHEND AND THE NORFOLK SYSTEM 



were thus attracted back from pasture to tillage. The 

 wars which ravaged the Continent and prevented foreign 

 nations from sowing or harvesting their crops completed 

 what domestic policy initiated. It was at this crisis that 

 Lord To^vnshend began the Norfolk or four-course system 

 of husbandry, long the mode l tofaTH other ^colinties . 

 Townshends political career had been useful, and from 

 1709 to 1730 he had held important offices of State. In 

 his capacity of Secretary he had accompanied George I. 

 to Hanover, where he had seen turnips grown as a field 

 crop. In 1730 he abandoned to Walpole the exclusive 

 enjoyment of power,__devoted himselfJbo_-&£ming, and, by 

 causing ' two ears of corn to grow where but one grew 

 before,' earned a better title to national gratitude than the 

 whole generation of his political contemporaries put to- 

 gether. 



Hitherto Suffolk and Essex had afibrded the best ex- 

 amples of English farming. Suffolk was famous for its 

 breed of Suffolk Punches, short compact horses, of about 

 fifteen hands high, properl}' of a sorrel colour, unrivalled 

 in their power of draught, though, as Cullum wrote in 

 1790, 'not fitted to indulge the rapid impatience of this 



In the 1st period 552,867 quarters of wheat were exported. 

 „ 2nd period 2,518,213 „ 



„ 3rd period 4,461,337 „ „ „ 



4. Between the years 1746-65, 2,699,224Z. lis. 4frf. were paid in 

 bounties on the following exports : — (1) Wheat, 6,800,016 qrs. ; (2) bar- 

 ley, 1,268,087 qrs. ; (3) oatmeal, 67,186 qrs.; (4) malt, 4,977,303 qrs. 

 (5) rye, 939,580 qrs. 



In the whole period, 1697-1765, it is calculated that upwards of 33 

 million quarters were exported, the value of which exceeded 36,000,000/. 



Burke's Act of 1773 reversed the old policy of bounties, and, before 

 It was modified, England had become a consumer rather than a grower 

 of corn. See Appendix IV. on the Corn Laws and the note there given. 

 on Bounties for Corn. 



