HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 15 



a larger area under the plough, this Elizabethan Act is of 

 great interest. 



It is abundantly clear from history that the British 

 farmer has bv disposition a natural inclination towards 

 grass land farming and to keep his arable area as small as 

 possible — this quite apart from the fact that grass grows 

 better in the British Isles than almost an>"where else in 

 Europe ; and in some parts of the country the heavy 

 rainfall makes it quite legitimately the predominating 

 crop. 



Whatever the practical results from the Elizabethan 

 Law thev are not recorded— the measure must have had 

 a certain effect in increasing arable cultivation, but little 

 real progress in agriculture in England can be noted until 

 early in the eighteenth century. In Scotland, even in 

 the rich southern counties, agriculture was at a lower ebb 

 and later in developing than in England. 



Still, signs of the coming developments can be found ; 

 for instance, one of the earliest references to the growing 

 of turnips and clover as sheep-food is by Houghton in 

 i6S I . And he bears testimony to the fact that arable land 

 produces more food for man and beast than grass land. 

 " Ten acres sown with turnips, clover, etc., will feed 

 as many sheep as one hundred acres would before have 

 done." 



In this he indicates the direction future developments 

 should take, and he thus sets up one of the landmarks in 

 our agricultural history. 



FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



Jethro Tull was one of the first of the pioneers in 

 '* modern " agriculture ; in 1701 he first began to drill 

 wheat and turnips ; he grew turnips as one of his 



