GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 163 



country, became an importing one. The progress of the 

 century was furthered by a band of men whose names are, 

 or ought to be, household words with English farmers: Jethro 

 Tull, Lord Townshend, Arthur Young, Bakewell, Coke of 

 Holkham, and the ColHngs. Further the century witnessed , 

 a great number of enclosures, especially when it was drawing 

 to its close. According to the Report of the Committee on 

 Waste Lands in 1797, the number of Enclosure Acts was: 

 under Anne, 2 Acts, enclosing 1,439 acres; under Geo. I, 16 

 Acts, enclosing 17,960 acres ; under Geo. II, 226 Acts, enclos- 

 ing 318,778 acres; from 1760 to 1797, 1,532 Acts, enclosing 

 2,804,197 acres. 



The period from 1700 to 1765 has been called the golden 

 age of the agricultural classes, as the fifteenth century has 

 been called the golden age of the labourer, but the farmer 

 and landlord were often hard pressed ; rates were low, wages 

 were fair, and the demand for the produce of the farm con- 

 stant owing to the growth of the population, yet prices for 

 wheat, stock, and wool were often unremunerative to the 

 farmer, and we are told in 1734, 'necessity has compelled 

 our farmers to more carefulness and frugality in laying out 

 their money than they were accustomed to in better times.' l 



The labourer's wages varied according to locality. The 

 assessment of wages by the magistrates in Lancashire for 

 1725 remains, and according to that the ordinary labourer 

 earned lod. a day in the summer and yd. in the winter 

 months, with extras in harvest, and this may be taken as the 

 average pay at that date. Threshing and winnowing wheat 

 by piece-work cost 2s. a quarter, oats is. a quarter. Making a 

 ditch 4 feet wide at the top, 18 inches wide at the bottom, and 

 3 feet deep, double set with quicks, cost is. a rood (8 yards), 

 if without the quick. 2 The magistrates remarked 



1 See Baker, Record of Seasons and Prices, p. 185. 



2 Eden, State of the Poor, iii. p. cvii ; Thorold Rogers, Work and 

 Wages, p. 396. 



M 2 



