178 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



course, like all improvers, he was met with unlimited opposi- 

 tion, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with 

 abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme 

 annoyance. His health was bad, his troubles with his labourers 

 unending, his son a spendthrift, and he died at his now famous 

 home, Prosperous Farm, near Hungerford, in 1741, having said 

 not long before his death, ' Some, allowed as good judges, have 

 upon a full view and examination of my practice declared their 

 opinion that it would one day become the general husbandry of 

 England.' 1 Scotland was the first to perceive the merits of the 

 system, and it gradually worked south wards into England, but for 

 many years had to fight against ignorance and prejudice, even 

 so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to it. 



Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, 

 and cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at 

 Hawsted, the tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being 

 allowed bushes and stakes for so doing. He was also to 

 bestow on some part of the lands one load of good rotten 

 muck over and above what was made on the farm for every 

 load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry off. 2 

 In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the 

 tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, 

 and fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the 

 custom of the country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End 

 Farm, there was a penalty of 10 an acre for breaking up 

 pasture ; a great increase in the amount of the penalty. All 

 compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising on the farm were to be 

 bestowed upon it. 



Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the 

 arable land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, 

 or with turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were 

 not to count as crops. 



The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were 

 now carefully looked after, as it had become the custom to 



1 R.A.S.E.Journ. (3rd Sen), ii. 20. 2 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 216. 



