Book I. AGRICULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 45 



239. Embankments were made on the eastward of England, in various places by 

 the Romans, when in possession of the country, and afterwards by some wealthy 

 religious houses, and the government. Considerable exertions were made at Boston 

 durino" the reign of Henry VII., under the direction of Mayhave Hake, a Flemish 

 engineer, and fourteen masons : but the principal effort, as far as respects gaining 

 land for agricultural purposes, was made under Cromwell's reign, by Col. Vermuy- 

 den, a Fleming, who served in his army. Speaking of this engineer's exertions, Harte 

 observes, " if my account stands right (and it comes from the best authority extant), our 

 kin'ydom in the space of a few years, till the year 1651 only, had recovered, or was 

 on the point of recovering, in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and 

 Kent, 425,000 acres of fens and morasses, which were advanced in general, from 

 half-a-crown an acre to twenty and thirty shillings. So that, perhaps, few statesmen and 

 generals have better deserved a statue or monument from this country than Vermuyden, 

 the principal undertaker." 



240. The exportation of corn was regulated by various laws, during the sixteenth cen- 

 tury; and importation was not restrained even in plenty and cheapness. In 1663 was 

 passed the first statute for levying tolls at turnpikes. Enclosures by consent and by act 

 of parliament began also to be made during this CMitury. 



241. The agriculture of Scotland during the ffteenth and sixteenth centuries continued 

 to languish, especially upon the estates of the barons, where the profession of a soldier 

 was regarded as of greater importance than that of a cultivator of the ground ; but the 

 ecclesiastical lands were considerably improved, and the tenants of them were generally 

 much more comfortably circumstanced than those upon the estates of laymen. The re- 

 formation of religion, beneficial as it was in other respects, rather checked than promoted 

 agricultural improvement ; because the change of property, which then occurred, occa- 

 sioned a similar change of tenantry, and almost took husbandry out of the hands of the 

 monks, the only class of people by whom it was practised upon correct principles. The 

 dissolution of the monasteries and other religious houses was also attended byinjurious con- 

 sequences in the first instance ; though latterly the greatest benefit has been derived from 

 tithes and church lands having come into the hands of laymen. It is probable, had not these 

 circumstances occurred, that the tithe system would have still remained in force, and 

 Scottish husbandry have continued under a burthen, which sinks and oppresses the cul- 

 tivator of England and Ireland. But tithes having got into the hands of lay titulars, or 

 impropriators, were in general collected or farmed with such severity as to occasion the 

 most grievous complaints, not only from the tenantry, but also from the numerous class 

 of proprietors, who had not been so fortunate as to procure a share of the general spoil. 

 This, added to the desire shown by the crown to resume the grants made when its power 

 was comparatively feeble, occasioned the celebrated submission to Charles L, which ended 

 in a settlement, that in modern times has proved highly beneficial, not only to the interest 

 of proprietors, but likewise to general improvement. Tithes, in fact, are a burthen, which 

 operate as a tax upon industry, though it was a long time before the beneficial conse- 

 quences of withdrawing them were fully understood. (Edin. Encyc. art. Agr.) 



242. Of the state of agriculture in Scotland during the greater part of the seventeenth 

 century very little is knoum ; no professed treatise on the subject appeared till after the 

 revolution. The south-eastern counties were the earliest improved, and yet, in 1660, 

 their condition seems to have been very wretched. Ray, who made a tour along the 

 eastern coast in that year, says, " We observed little or no fallow grounds in Scotland ; 

 some ley ground we saw, which they manured with sea wreck. The men seemed to be 

 very lazy, and may be frequently observed to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of 

 them to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays. They have neither 

 good bread, cheese, nor drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their 

 butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so 

 bad. They use much pottage made of coalwort, which they call kail, sometimes broth 

 of decorticated barley. The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots, built of stone, and 

 covered with turfs, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the win- 

 dows very small holes, and not glazed. The ground in the valleys and plains bears very 

 good corn, but especially bears barley or bigge and oats, but rarely wheat and rye." 

 {Select Remains of John Ray. Lond. 1760.) 



243. It is probable that no great change had taken place in Scotland from the end of the fifteenth century 

 except that tenants gradually became possessed of a little stock of their own, instead of having their 

 farms stocked by the landlord. " The minority of James V., the reign of Mary Stewart, the infancy of 

 her son, and the civil wars of her grandson Charles I., were all periods of lasting waste. The very laws 

 which were made during successive reigns for protecting the tillers of the soil from spoil, are the best 

 proofs of the deplorable state of the husbandman." {Chalmers^ Caledonia, vol. ii, p. 732. Encyc. Brit. 

 art. Agr. 



244. The accession of James V. to the crown of England is understood to have been 

 unfavorable to the agricultural interest of Scotland ; inasmuch as the nobles and gentry 



