CHAPTER VII. 

 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 1700-1760. 



Agricultural progress in the eighteenth century ; enclosures necessary to 

 advance ; advocates and opponents of the enclosing movement ; area 

 of uncultivated land and of land cultivated in open-fields ; defects of the 

 open-field system as a method of farming ; pasture commons as adjuncts 

 to open-field holdings ; the necessary lead in agricultural progress given 

 by large landowners and large farmers ; procedure in enclosures by Act 

 of Parliament : varying dates at which districts have been enclosed : 

 influence of soil and climate in breaking up or maintaining the open-field 

 system : the East Midland and North Eastern group of counties : improved 

 methods and increased resources of farming ; Jethro Tull the " greatest 

 individual improver " ; Lord Townshend's influence on Norfolk husbandry. 



THE gigantic advance of agriculture in the nineteenth century 

 dwarfs into insignificance any previous rate of progress. Yet the 

 change between 1700 and 1800 was astonishing. England not only 

 produced food for a population that had doubled itself, as well as 

 grain for treble the number of horses, but during the first part of 

 the period became, as M. de Lavergne has said, the granary of 

 Europe. Population before 1760 grew so slowly that the soil, 

 without any great increase in farming skill or in cultivated area, 

 produced a surplus. Under the spur of the bounty, land which had 

 been converted to pasture was again ploughed for corn, and proved 

 by its yield that it had profited by the prolonged rest. The price 

 of wheat, between the years 1713 and 1764, in spite of large exports, 

 averaged 34s. lid. per quarter ; poor-rates fell below the level of 

 the preceding century ; real wages were higher than they had been 

 since the reign of Henry VI. In England, at least, there was little 

 civil war or tumult, no glut of the labour market, no sudden growth 

 of an artisan class. The standard of living improved. Instead of 

 the salted carcases of half -starved and aged oxen, fresh meat began 

 to be eaten by the peasantry. Wheaten bread ceased to be a luxury 

 of the wealthy, and, at the accession of George III. had become the 



