270 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



' the beginning of a period of slow recovery in the labourer's 

 standard of life, moral and material, though at first it brought 

 him not a little adversity ' ; l and the Tithe Commutation Act of 

 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which substituted for the tithe 

 paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted tithe, a tithe rent 

 charge equivalent to the market value, on a septennial average, 

 of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, which 

 made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus 

 was removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism 

 between tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto 

 pursued, moreover, was wasteful. In exceptionally favour- 

 able circumstances the clergy did not receive more than two- 

 thirds of the value of the tithe in kind. The delays were 

 a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the farmer 

 desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock 

 his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, 

 and wait for their arrival ; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, 

 being badly damaged. 2 



acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by being 

 bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes, and by 

 residence. Stephen, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1903), iii. 87. 



1 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 217. 



2 R. A. S. E. Journal (1901), p. 9. 



V 



