^^6 History of the English Landed Interest. 



ten shillings a week to live in tlie rnins of the old mansion 

 or farm house and act as foreman-labourer on the land. In 

 the course of a tour taken by the Essex correspondent to the 

 Board he stumbles across an exaggerated instance of this 

 " holding off hand," as the process was more commonly- 

 termed. " An overgrown farmer's wife (sic)," he states, " ob- 

 served to him with much indifference that her husband had 

 but nine farms in his occupation, each of which, upon further 

 inquiry, was found to be equal to the care and capital of the 

 same number of equally skilful and respectable, though per- 

 haps not such wealthy and imperious families." 



Yet common though this practice was,. a careful scrutiny of 

 all the reports to the Board results in the discovery of but one 

 instance (that of Rutlandshire) where a small penalty of ten 

 pounds a year is imposed in the agreement, in order to induce 

 a tenant to occupy the farmhouse instead of subletting it. 

 But it does not appear that this pernicious practice was 

 strictly legal, for the Tudor legislation, which does not seem to 

 have been subsequently repealed, rendered any person liable 

 to the forfeiture of three shillings and fourpence per week 

 so long as he held two farms together in the same parish.^ 

 Whether, however, it was legal or not, many landlords offered 

 no objections to " a system, which they imagined enabled a 

 farmer to support his one famil}^ out of several holdings, and 

 would consequentl}^ leave him with a larger surplus of profits 

 wherewith to pay his rents. 



There was yet another cause why farmers were restricted 

 in their choice of crops. The buildings were more adapted 

 for the wants of the old "three-field " system than for those of 

 the new husbandry. Little or no room was available for 

 housing cattle and roots ; on the other hand, a large surplus 

 was available for those who preferred to stack rather than to 

 house their hay and straw. In Northumberland an ordinary- 

 sized barn was sixty feet long by eighteen feet wide. In the 

 West Riding of Yorkshire the barns were likened to churches. 

 In Norfolk, similar erections, costing £500, to build, were con- 



' Covf. 25 Hen. YIII. c. 13, and 32 ircii. Till. c. 28. 



