208 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 



reforming movement. Fox, even in the Louvre, was lost in con- 

 sideration whether the weather was favourable to his turnips at 

 St. Anne's Hill. Burke experimented in carrots as a field crop 

 on his farm at Beaconsfield, though he pointed his sarcasms against 

 the Duke of Bedford for his devotion to agriculture. Lord Althorp, 

 in the nineteenth century, maintained the traditions of his official 

 predecessors. During a serious crisis of affairs, when he was 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Grey of Dilston called upon him 

 in Downing Street on political business. Lord Althorp's first 

 question, eagerly asked, was " Have you been at Wiseton on your 

 way up ? Have you seen the cows ? " The enthusiasm for farm- 

 ing began to be scientific as well as practical. No new book escaped 

 the vigilance of agriculturists. Miss Edgeworth's Essay on Irish 

 Bulls (1802) had scarcely been published a week before it was 

 ordered by the secretary of an agricultural society. Nor were the 

 clergy less zealous. An archdeacon, finding a churchyard culti- 

 vated for turnips, rebuked the rector with the remark, " This must 

 not occur again." The reply, " Oh no, Mr. Archdeacon, it will be 

 barley next year," shows that, whatever were the shortcomings of 

 the Church, the eighteenth century clergy were at least devoted to 

 the rotation of crops. 



Every department of agriculture was permeated by a new spirit 

 of energy and enterprise. Rents rose, but profits outstripped the 

 rise. New crops were cultivated ; swedes, mangel-wurzel, kohl 

 rabi, prickly comfrey were readily adopted by a new race of agri- 

 culturists. Breeders spent capital freely in improving live-stock. 

 New implements were introduced. The economy and handiness of 

 ploughs like the Norfolk, or the Rotherham ploughs as improved by 

 James Small of Blackadder Mount, were gradually recognised, and 

 the cumbrous mediaeval instruments with their extravagant teams 

 superseded. Meikle's threshing machine (1784) began to drive 

 out the flail by its economy of human labour. Numerous patents 

 were taken out between 1788 and 1816 for drills, reaping, mowing, 

 haymaking, and winnowing machines, as well as for horse-rakes, 

 scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and other mechanical aids to 

 agriculture. In the northern counties iron gates and fences began 

 to be used. The uniformity of weights and measures * was eagerly 



1 Under the Act of Union with Scotland (clause 17) it had been provided 

 that the same weights and measures which were established in England 

 should be used throughout the United Kingdom. But the clause remained 



