258 History of the English Landed Interest. 



pastures were hired out to butchers and brewers, and brought 

 to their owners all the large profits usually obtained from such 

 " accommodation land." ^ He learned that the secret of their 

 success was the practice of manuring each enclosure heavily 

 with well-rotted town manure every autumn, and moss-har- 

 rowing it each spring with sloe twigs attached to handles and 

 drawn by horses. The fields were surrounded with six-foot 

 banks composed of earth eight feet broad at the base and taper- 

 ing to two feet at the summit. The grasses consisted principally 

 of alopecurus culmo erecto and hromus panicula erecta coarctata^ 

 and grew to a height of 2^ feet.^ The hay was reaped with 

 the scythe at the end of May ; allowed to lie till partly dry in 

 the swathe ; then raked into rows with iron forks fitted into 

 wooden handles, and cast together with pitchforks into cocks 

 eight feet high. When made, it was loaded into large wagons;^ 

 carried home and stacked, not in wooden lathes as in Sweden, 

 but in the open, the ricks being formed in precisely the same 

 fashion as they are now-a-days. The labour was performed 

 entirely by men, principally Irish, who came over to England, 

 and were hired by the farmers at this abnormally busy period. 

 The harvest labour in Kent was monopolised by the Welsh, 

 who migrated in families early in the summer, and found 

 employment for all hands, both male and female, in the 

 gathering in of hay, grain, and hops.* 



From Kalm's description of market gardening, it would almost 

 seem as if our modern practice had even retrograded since 

 his days. The fields rented by market gardeners were shaped 

 into beds, and constructed so as to slightly slope towards the 

 midday sun. They were edged with thin planks, most of 

 them covered with movable glass frames, and sheltered in 

 periods of frost and snow with Russian matting and straw 

 four inches thick. All kinds of kitchen produce were grown, 

 and such delicate vegetables as cauliflowers and asparagus were 

 forced forward as spring delicacies by means of bell glasses. 

 Besides all these precautions against the weather, it was not 

 unusual to find reed fences erected at each bed to keep off the 



' Kalm's England, 1748, p. 28. Translation of Joseph Lucas, 1892. 

 '' Id. Ibid., p. 49. ^ j^j. Ibid., p. 80. * Id. Ibid., p. 83. 



