2o6 History of the English Landed Interest. 



The value of the straw was considered equivalent to the 

 cost of thrashing. If the crop only yielded three times the 

 amount sowu^ and was sold at sixpence per bushel, there would 

 be a loss of three-halfpence per acre ; and the writer deduces 

 from these figures the importance that every farmer should 

 attach to the selection, annual change, and proper cultivation 

 of his seed wheat.^ It is evident that straw was of very little 

 value, except for thatching ; and the stubble, if not removed 

 and used on the premises, was left so high as to have been 

 worth purchasing in cases where bad farmers could be induced 

 to sell it. It does not seem to have been used with manure, 

 for the latter was generally mixed with earth and placed in 

 compost heaps. The object of this seems to have been very 

 vaguely understood. It is not profitable to expose the early 

 errors of empirical knowledge unaided by science, but it is 

 worthy of notice that Walter of Henley ,2 in explaining that 

 manure wastes in descending and that marl wastes in ascend- 

 ing, completely traverses the real position of the case. Alas ! 

 that whilst chemistry was in the hands of the Alchemists, who 

 hung up young alligators in their laboratories to scare the 

 curious from the worthless secrets of their crucibles, and vainly 

 tried to make impossible gold by spoiling useful brass, the 

 ammonia of the farmyard was volatilising far above, and the 

 lime of the marl-dressing was sinking far below the root fibres 

 of those crops which they might have fertilised. 



The management of the live stock was necessarily different 

 to that adopted in modern times, not because less care was 

 taken, but because the value and uses of the various species 

 were different then to what they are now. Of course the 

 introduction of the root crops, some few centuries later, 

 completely revolutionised the winter management of live 

 stock. The best time to buy beasts was between Easter and 

 Whitsuntide, when they were cheapest. The oxen were each 

 day bathed and groomed with a wisp of straw, and gene- 



' The average yield per acre was 10 to 12 bushels, according to Fleta. 



* The rate of seed sown per acre was 2 bushels of wheat, or rye, 2 

 bushels of beans, peas, or vetches, and 4 bushels of barley. — Rogers, Prices 

 and Agriculture, vol. i., p. IG. * Walter de Henle, p. 21. 



