Agricultural Statistics 112 



not only could, but also did^ plough all day and 

 every day (saving the 7th), no matter the weather, 

 storms, snow, frost, floods, hay time, harvest, etc. ; 

 now if the author means to make this assertion he 

 must be postulating that he conceived his day and 

 generation equally as credulous, as some of the 

 writers on agriculture in the I9th century. The 

 6o,coo knights and fees of King William (ap- 

 parently still in repute, see " Social England ") and 

 the 45,000 parish churches supposed to exist in 

 1371, are errors one can understand, but why such 

 exceeding mystery as to an art daily in operation 

 before our eyes, should appear in the productions 

 of scholars who honor (?) Agriculture with their 

 notice, is not easily conceivable. 



Returning to Walter de Henley it may be sug- 

 gested that he intended to convey that if the above 

 evidently unreal programme took place, then would 

 the amount tilled by each plough in the year be 

 such a quantity of land, as is termed a carucate : in 

 addition the author is supposed to have flourished 

 in the first \ of the I3th century, and is describing 

 cultivation of demesne land, which it must have 

 been known, was to a considerable extent tilled by 

 the tenantry this he says nothing about. 



Before proceeding to discuss ancient evidences, Agriculture 



r i D i r s s i Io86 - l6 96. 



a contrast of the agriculture of 1086, 1696, and and 1897 

 1897 may not be out of place ; the crops of 1086 contraste 

 were *~Wheat, Barley, Oats, Rye, Beans, Peas, and 

 perhaps Vetches ; of 1696 in ordinary rotation, 

 the same including Vetches; for 1897 a dd sucn 



* D. B. Wheat lia, 32/1, \-j6b, Oats 214/7, Rye 257^. 



