CROPS 165 



grass seeds, &c.' l Crops, too, were improving ; and enclosed 

 lands about 1726 were said to produce over 20 bushels of 

 wheat to the acre. 2 



Though the number of Enclosure Acts at the beginning of 

 the century was nothing like the number at the end, the 

 process was steadily going on, often by non-parliamentary 

 enclosure, and was approved by nearly every one. Some, 

 however, were opposed to it. John Cowper, who wrote an 

 essay on ' Enclosing Commons' in 1732, said, a common was 

 often the chief support of forty or fifty poor families, and 

 even though their rights were bought out they were under 

 the necessity of leaving their old homes, for their occupation 

 was gone ; but he says nothing of the well-known increased 

 demand for labour on the enclosed lands. The force of his 

 arguments may be gauged from his answer to Lawrence's 

 statement that enclosure is the greatest benefit to good 

 husbandry, and a remedy for idleness. On the contrary, 

 says he, who among the country people live lazier lives than 

 the grazier and the dairyman ? All the dairyman has to do 

 is to call his cows together to be milked ! 



Worlidge in 1669 had lamented that turnips were so little 

 grown by English farmers in the field, and that it was a plant 

 ' usually nourished in gardens ', 3 and in a letter to Houghton 

 in 1684, he is the first to mention the feeding of turnips to 

 sheep. 4 However, in 1726 it was said that nothing of late 

 years had turned to greater profit to the farmer, who now 

 found it one of his chief treasures ; and there were then three 

 sorts : the round which was most common, the yellow, and 

 the long. 5 For winter use they were to be sown from the 



1 Smith, Memoirs of Wool, ii. 93. 



2 John Lawrence, New System of Agriciilture, p. 45. In 1712, a normal 

 season, 48 acres of wheat at South wick in Hants produced 16 bushels 

 per acre, 45 acres of barley 12 bushels per acre, 30 acres of oats 24 bushels 

 per acre; at the same place 240 sheep realized Ss. each, cows 65.?., calves .1, 

 horses 6, hay z$s. a ton (Hampshire Notes and Queries, iii. 120). 



3 Worlidge, Systemi Agriculturae, p. 42. 4 Collections, iv. 142. 

 5 Lawrence, New System of Agriculture, p. 109. 



