16 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



standard crops, and adopted the system of horse hoeing, 

 thus largely supplanting the old and more laborious 

 system of hand hoeing. Before the drill was invented, 

 which enabled the sowing of seed in evenly spaced 

 straight lines, all sowing was done by hand — broadcast, 

 which made horse hoeing impossible. But Jethro TuU 

 was full thirty years in advance of his times and had to 

 face the opposition and even hostility of the farming 

 community. 



The use of turnips must have spread slowly, for the 

 writer possesses a silver cup which was given in 1769 

 as a prize for " the best six acres of turnips compleatly 

 hoed " ; this in the North Riding of Yorkshire, so that 

 there at all events turnips were regarded as a new crop 

 to be encouraged by prizes as late as 1769. 



After Jethro TuU the two outstanding agricultural 

 pioneers are Coke of Norfolk, who worked for the im- 

 provement of agriculture in all its branches, and Bakewell, 

 who concentrated his attention upon the improvement 

 of our live stock. They did their great work towards 

 the end of the eighteenth century ; but a marked and 

 general improvement in our agriculture began to show 

 itself about 1730. 



By the end of the eighteenth century the rotation of 

 crops was universally practised ; this involved the full 

 use of leguminous plants. 



Although this is so, the functions of the leguminous 

 plants were by no means fully understood ; and the 

 most valuable plant of this order, lucerne or alfalfa, 

 was little used. 



We have seen that it was grown in Roman times in 

 England, but any material increase in the area used for 

 this crop did not take place until the end of the nineteenth 

 and beginning of the twentieth century. The areas 



