1 86 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



scarcity of stock great quantities of grass land were ploughed 

 up, which helped to account for the fact that in 1750 the 

 export of corn from England reached its maximum ; though 

 the main cause of this was the long series of excellent seasons 

 that set in after I74O. 1 The cattle plague also raged in 1754 

 in spite of an Order in Council that all infected cattle should 

 be shot and buried 4 ft. deep, and pitch, tar, rosin, and gun- 

 powder burnt where infected cattle had died, and cow-houses 

 washed with vinegar and water. Such were the sanitary pre- 

 cautions of the time. 2 In 1756 came another bad year, corn 

 was so scarce that there were many riots ; the king ex- 

 pressed to Parliament his concern at the suffering of the poor, 

 and the export of corn was temporarily prohibited. The fluc- 

 tuations in price are remarkable : in 1756, before the deficiency 

 of the harvest was realized, wheat was 22s. and it went up at 

 the following rate : Jan., 1757, 49^. ; Feb., 5u. ; March, 54^. ; 

 April, 645. ; June, 72*. 



About the middle of the century, if we may judge from the 

 Compleat Cyder man, written in 1754 by experienced hands 

 living in Devon, Cornwall, Herefordshire, and elsewhere, fruit- 

 growing received an amount of attention which diminished 

 greatly in after years. The authors fully realized that 

 an orchard under tillage causes apple trees to grow as fast 

 again as under grass, and this was well understood and 

 practised in Kent, where crops of corn were grown between 

 the trees. 



A Devonshire ' cyderist ' urged that orchards should be well 

 sheltered from the east winds, which 'bring over the narrow sea 

 swarms of imperceptible eggs, or insects in the air, from the 

 vast tracts of Tartarian and other lands, from which proceeded 

 infinite numbers of lice, flies, bugs, caterpillars, cobwebs, &c.' 



1 Tooke, History of Prices, i. 42. 



2 See a curious pamphlet called An Exhortation to all People to 

 Consider the Afflicting Hand of God (1754), p. 6. The plague lasted 

 from 1745 to 1756. 



