Estate Economy. 3 1 1 



order to save tliemselves the expenses of housekeeping. Many 

 farms were left on hand, and few had sufficient capital to stock 

 them. In addition to the legislation already instanced, there 

 were other Acts designed to distribute the land more uniformly 

 throughout the agricultural communit3^ In 1588 penalties 

 were imposed ^ upon those who built cottages without at least 

 four acres of land attached. In 151.)7 all houses of husbandry 

 decayed within the preceding seven years were ordered "^ to be 

 rebuilt, and from twenty to forty acres of land attached to 

 them. The difficulty seems to have been in enforcing this 

 species of legislation, as such statutes had to be constantly 

 re-enacted, and even then the rural poverty could only be 

 checked by the Elizabethan Poor Laws. Then, as always, 

 necessity proved a good mother, so that the skill and care set 

 in motion by the lacerating spur of want ameliorated the 

 national system of agriculture. Good and properly cultivated 

 land yielded t^^enty bushels of wheat, thirty-two of barley, 

 or forty of oats and pulse per acre. Cattle increased to such 

 proportions as to obviate the old necessity of restricting by 

 statute the slaughter of weanlings.'^ Bacon, veal, and even 

 fresh fish (wherever good roads gave access to the seaboard) 

 began to supplement the salt meats of the winter larder, and 

 the Tudor farmer probably was able to sit down to as good a 

 Christmas dinner as any farmer of to-day. 



But not content with improving his land and livestock, the 

 farmer in many cases turned clothier, and though his class 

 has always been looked upon as the very marrow of the 

 nation, he incurred by so doing the statute book's contemptuous 

 synonym of " foreigner." ^ "When his wife was not spinning 

 flax she was sorting wool for her husband, and the two 

 together with their children probably dressed themselves 

 almost entirely with their own handiwork. The roads were 



1 31 Eliz. c. 7. 



2 39 Eliz. cc. 1 and 2. 



^ Harrison, Description of England. Tliis man, born in London, 

 ■became Canon of Windsor in 1586. He had access to Leland's valuable 

 manuscripts, out of which he gathered sufficient materials for the above 

 ■work. 



' 5 and G Ed. VI. c. 8. 



