CHAPTER III 



AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 



" This is an Age wherein to commend or extol an Ingenious 

 Art or Science might be deemed a Needless Labour, especially 

 in a Country so highly improved in everything ; but that we 

 find the more Noble, Advantagious, Useful, or Necessary, 

 any Art, Science, or Profession is, the stronger Arguments 

 are framed against it ; and more particularly against the 

 Rustick Art and its infinite Preheminances and Oblectations, 

 by the vainer and more pedant sort of persons, despising the 

 worth or value of what they are ignorant of, who judge it 

 below their honour or reputation to take any notice of so 

 mean a profession ; that esteem the Country no other than a 

 place for Beasts as Cities for Men." Worlidge's Proemium to 

 Systema Agricultural ed. 1681. 



THE fiscal Hide of Domesday contained (or 120 Fiscal 

 often did) 1 20 fiscal acres, and the normal Acres< 

 areal Hide 120 actual ones, which perhaps 

 accounts for the statement that a like quantity was 

 tilled by each plough per ann. which is opposed 

 to the common experience and knowledge of any 

 English farmer of arable, and would predicate 

 weather suitable for constant aration ; whereas 

 30 weeks in the year is perhaps a high estimate of 

 the period during which land can be worked, and 

 40-60 acres may be roughly taken as the present 

 land of one plough. The work on Husbandry 

 derived from the MS. of Sir Walter de Henley 

 (and printed by the R.H.S.) presumes a 3 or 



