610 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



largement of them from ever becoming injurious to the public, and the influence which 

 perfect liberty in this respect has excited in the improveiTient of our agriculture. 



3843. During the feudal system, that part of an estate which was not cultivated under 

 the direction of the proprietor himself, was let out in small allotments to his vassals, 

 from whom he received mihtary or other services, or a portion of the produce, in return. 

 In these times of turbulence and ferocity, the power of the chief mainly depended on the 

 number of his tenants ; and it was therefore his policy to increase them as much as pos- 

 sible, by dividing his land into very small possessions. That they might assist one 

 another in their rural labors, and in repelling the incursions to which they were inces- 

 santly exposed, these tenants were collected in a village near the castle of their lord. A 

 certain extent of arable land was appropriated to it, on which they raised corn, and a 

 much larger tract of waste or wood land, where their live stock pastured in common. 

 Spirited cultivation could never be introduced into this system of occupancy ; nothing 

 more than the means of subsistence was sought by the tenantry, and power, not revenue, 

 was the great object of the landholder. 



3844. After the fall of the feudal system, this arrangement continued to prevail with 

 little alteration for a long period ; its vestiges are still to be traced in every part of 

 Britain ; and it exists in several counties, though in a modified form, even at the present 

 time. The common fields and commons of England, and the infield and outfield divi- 

 sions of Scotland, did not originate in any regard for the welfare of the lower classes, to 

 whom the tenancy of land is now thought to be so necessary, but in the anarchy and op- 

 pression of those dark ages in which all the landed property of the island was engrossed 

 by a few great barons. When these petty sovereigns were at last overthrown, and when 

 commerce and the arts held up to them new objects of desire, and to their depressed 

 tenantry new^ modes of employment and subsistence, the bond which had hitherto con- 

 nected the landlord and cultivator became more and more feeble, and it was soon found 

 necessary to establish it upon other foundations than those of feudal protection and 

 dependence, the connection between landlord and tenant came gradually and generally 

 to assume that commercial forai, which is at once most conducive to their own interest, 

 and to the general welfare. 



3845. The want of capital ready to be embarked in agricultural pursuits, was one great 

 obstacle to this change. Under the feudal system there could be little or no accumula- 

 tion. Property in land was the only means of obtaining the command of labor, and 

 a share of the produce its only recompence. Accordingly upon the breaking up of the 

 feudal system, large tracts were taken into the immediate possession of landholders 

 themselves, because no suitable tenants could be found. The constant superintendence 

 required in cultivating corn lands, as well as the absurd restrictions of those times upon 

 the corn trade, and the constant demand for British wool on the continent, occasioned 

 these tracts to be laid to grass and pastured with sheep. Hence the grievous complaints, 

 during two centuries, of the decay of husbandry and farm-houses. But this resource of 

 land proprietors was effectual only on soils of an inferior description ; on good arable 

 land, the only method by which a part of the produce could reach them in the shape of 

 rent, was to enlarge their farms. The old occupiers were too numerous to spare any 

 considerable part of the produce, and generally too indolent and unskilful to make any 

 great exertions to augment it. In these circumstances, the landholder must either have 

 virtually abandoned his property, or reduced the number of its inhabitants, who were no 

 longer permitted by law to make him that return which had been the original condition 

 of their tenures. But the population of the towns was now gradually increasing, and it 

 was necessary, for the supply of their wants, as much for the benefit of the landholders, 

 that a large disposable produce should be obtained from the soil. The measure of 

 enlarging farms was, therefore, in every view, indispensable. Even such of the tenants 

 themselves, as it was necessary to displace, might have felt but a slight and temporary 

 inconvenience, had the change been gradual. Some of them would have found employ- 

 ment in towns, and others as hired laborers and artisans in the country. The dismission 

 of the small tenants seems, however, to have been the occasion of much misery ; for in 

 the sixteenth century, manufactures and commerce had made comparatively little progress 

 in Britain. In the present times, any length to which the private interest of landholders 

 could operate in this manner, would in a national point of view be too inconsiderable to 

 deserve notice. It is in this way that farms have been enlarged, the most skilful and 

 industrious of these small tenants were naturally preferred, and their possessions afterwards 

 enlarged as their capital increased. The consequence every where has been a better 

 system of cultivation, affording a higher rent to the land proprietor, and a greater supply 

 of land produce for the general consumption. 



3846. The enlargement of farms can proceed only for a time and to a Very limited 

 extent. The interest of the landlord, which gave the first impulse, is ever vigilant to 

 check its progress, when it is attempted to carry the measure beyond due bounds. 

 It is in this that the security of the public consists, if it were ever possible that the public 



