40 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



any where else, and that from the grapes was produced a wine very little inferior to 

 that of France. Orchards and cyder were also abundant, and the apple trees, it is said, 

 lined the roads in some parts of the country, as they still do in Normandy, whence in 

 all probability the plants or at least the grafts would be imported. 



SuBSECT. 3. History of Agriculture in Britain from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth 



Century. 



210. Agriculture in tlie thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it appears, was still carried on 

 with vigor. Sir John Fortescue, in a work in praise of the English laws, mentions the pro- 

 gress that had been made in planting hedges andhedge-row trees before the end of the four- 

 teenth century. Judge Fortescue wrote his Legum Anglise in the fifteenth century, but it 

 was not published till the reign of Henry VIII. In the lawbook called Fleta (supposed 

 to have been written by some lawyers, prisoners in the Fleet in 1 340), very particular direc- 

 tions are given as to the most proper times and best manner of ploughing and dressing 

 fallows. {Fleta y lib. ii. chap. 73. p. 163.) The farmer is there directed to plough no 

 deeper in summer than is necessary for destroying the weeds ; nor to lay on his manure 

 till a little before the last ploughing, which is to be with a deep and narrow furrow. 

 Rules are also given for the changing and choosing seed ; for proportioning the 

 quantity of different kinds of seed to be sown on an acre, according to the nature of the 

 soil, and the degree of richness ; for collecting^and compounding manures, and accona- 

 modating them to the grounds on which they are to be laid ; for the best seasons for 

 sowing seeds of different kinds on all the variety of soils ; and in a word, for performing 

 every operation in husbandry, at the best time, and in the best manner. {Fleta, lib. ii. 

 chap. 72, 73. 76.) In the same work, the duties and business of the steward, bailiff, and 

 overseer, of a manor, and of all the other persons concerned in the cultivation of it, are 

 explained at full length, and with so much good sense, that if they were well performed 

 the manor could not be ill cultivated. {Ibid. ch. 72. 88. Henry, viii. 267.) This work 

 as well as others of the kind is written in Latin, and even the farming accounts were those 

 days kept in that language, as they still are in the greater part of Hungary. 



211. During the greater part of the fifteenth century England was engaged in civil wars, 

 and agriculture as well as other arts declined. The laborers, called from the plough by 

 royal proclamation or the mandates of their lords, perished in battle or by accident and 

 fatigue, in immense numbers. Labor rose in price notwithstanding various laws for its 

 limitation, and this at last produced a memorable revolution in the state of agriculture, 

 which made a mighty noise for many years. The prelates, barons, and other great 

 proprietors of land, kept extensive tracts around their castles, which were called their 

 demesne lands, in their own immediate possession, and cultivated them by their villains, 

 and by hired servants, under the direction of their bailiffs. But these great landholders 

 having often led their followers into the fields of war, their numbers were gradually 

 diminished, and hired servants could not be procured on reasonable terms. This obliged 

 the prelates, lords, and gentlemen to enclose the lands around their castles, and to con- 

 vert them into pasture grounds. This practice of enclosing became very general in 

 England about the middle of this period, and occasioned prodigious clamors from those 

 who mistook the effect of depopulation for its cause. 



212. The habit of enclosiiig lands and converting them to jiasture continued after the cause 

 had ceased, and an act was passed to stop its progress in the beginning of the reign of 

 Henry VII. The dearths of this period are another proof of the low state of agriculture. 

 Wheat in 1437 and 1438, rose from 45. or 4s. 6d., the ordinary price per quarter, to 

 1/. 6s. 8rf., equivalent to 13/. 6s. 8d. of our money. Stow observes that in these 

 extremities the common people endeavored to preserve their wretched lives by drying the 

 roots of herbs and converting them into a kind of bread. Land in those days were sold 

 for ten years' purchase, so great was the insecurity of possession. 



213. Agriculture in Scotland was at a low ebb during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 

 fifteenth centuries, on account of the long and ruinous wars in which the country was 

 engaged. A law passed in 1424 enacts, that every laborer of "simple estaste" dig a 

 piece of ground daily, of seven feet square. Another in 1457, that farmers who had 

 eight oxen should sow every year one firlot (bushel) of wheat, half a firlot of pease, and 

 forty of beans, under the pain often shillings to be paid to the baron; and if the baron 

 did not do the same thing to the lands in his possession, he should pay the same penalty to 

 the king. 



214. From the accession of Henry VII. in 1485, to nearly the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, England enjoyed peace. The effects of former wars, however, required a 

 considerable time to remove. The high price of labor, and the conversion of so much 

 land to tillage, gave rise to different impolitic statutes, prohibiting the exportation of 

 corn ; while a great demand was created for wool by the manufacturers of the Nether- 

 lands, which tended to enhance the value of pasture lands, and depopulate the country. 

 The flocks of individuals, in these times, sometimes exceeded twenty thousand ; and 

 an act was passed by Henry VIII., restricting them to a tenth of that number, ap- 



