SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 41 



rare luxury, but nearly every farmer kept bees, and honey was 

 therefore almost the only form of sweetening in common use. 

 Though this diet lacked variety, it seems to have been fairly 

 abundant. The coarse and monotonous food was generally 

 washed down with home-brewed ale or beer, at least in the 

 more well-to-do families. 



The manorial system. The communal form of rural organi- 

 zation under which these developments of the agricultural in- 

 dustry took place was gradually replaced by a new form known 

 as the manorial system. This was a change in the form of land 

 ownership rather than in the system of farming. The manorial 

 system succeeded the mark system of ownership, but the open- 

 field system of farming accompanied both. It is not possible to 

 fix upon any date as marking the end of the communal or mark 

 system, and the beginning of the manorial system. In England, 

 the country in whose agricultural history we in this country are 

 most interested, it probably began about two centuries before 

 the Norman Conquest (1066 A.D.). The practical completion 

 of the movement followed speedily after that event, for the 

 Normans found the manorial system a convenient basis for the 

 reorganization of the kingdom. Not only were the existing 

 i manors granted to the followers of William the Conqueror, but 

 the entire kingdom was surveyed and divided up in the same 

 way. In the winter of 1085-1086 a general survey of the king- 

 dom was ordered, and was carried out during the following year. 

 This is known as the Domesday Survey, and the results were 

 recorded in what is known as Domesday Book. This is the first 

 recorded agricultural survey on a thoroughly comprehensive 

 scale, and is probably the most complete survey ever made of 

 the agricultural resources of any nation. 



Description of a manor. If we will imagine one of the village 

 communities as having become the private property of an over- 

 lord, and the villagers as having become his hereditary tenants 



