3 1 2 History of the English Landed Interest. 



still too bad and the market tolls too exorbitant to induce the 

 husbandman to look much outside his own resources for his 

 wants, and of course the simple farming implements of the 

 period were repaired or replaced by himself and his people. 

 The growing political power of the townsman is now evidenced 

 by the restrictive measures ' passed through parliament against 

 these irregular rustic industries. The manufacturer of cloth 

 complained that his monopoly was injured, and in future the 

 clothing trade was confined to the towns, though looms were 

 still allowed in the farmhouses of the North and "West, where 

 the coarser kinds of hair wool continued to be made up into 

 homespun garments for tlio country folk. 



Up to the reign of Henry VIII. tlie linen used in England 

 was principally foreign, but about 1533 the State encourages 

 native talent by enacting that every person who occupied 

 sixty acres of arable land should grow a quarter of an acre of 

 flax or hemp annually.^ 



» 2 ^c 3 Ph. & Mary- c. 11 ; 4 & 5 Ph. & Mary, c. 5. 

 - 24 Hen. VIII. c. 4. 



