112 AGRICULTURE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



mostly constnicted of wood and exceedingly 

 cumbrous. Moreover, tliose wlio had them often 

 feared to make much use of them, the labourers 

 of those days entertaining very universallj^ the 

 notion that all kinds of machinery took bread 

 out of the mouths of the poor, and hence it Avas 

 no harm to disable or even to destroy it when- 

 ever opportunity served. During the agrarian 

 riots of 18-52 the spite of the mobs was chiefly 

 wreaked against farmers who had threshing- 

 machines ; and, if they could reach their barns 

 before the yeomanry came the machines were 

 broken to pieces and burnt. An easier way was, 

 however, that of igniting the barn itself, and 

 incendiary fires on farms were rife in the troubled 

 period of 1848. 



Wheat was mostlv sown broadcast. Summer 

 fallows were general in those days, and often in 

 October they were, even in clay, fine tilth at 

 sowing time. The seed corn was then ploughed in, 

 but, when a clover layer or piece of bean stubble, 

 the land was ploughed, if possible, a fortnight 

 before being sown. The wheat was sown broad- 

 cast on the furrows, and the staler they were 

 the better they could be worked down by the 

 harroAvs for bur^ang the seed corn. Both ploughs 

 and harrows were of exceedingly rough construc- 

 tion, the handiwork of hedgeside carpenters and 

 village smiths. A farmer's stock of field imple- 

 ments was seldom more than two or three ploughs 

 with cast-iron turnfarrows, a heavy pair of har- 

 rows, tined drags, and a light pair, besides a 



