104 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 



recommended for field cultivation ; twenty years later, potatoes 

 were suggested as a farming crop ; the value of clover and other 

 artificial grasses had been recognised, and urged upon English 

 farmers. Methods became less barbarous. An Act of Parliament 

 was passed " agaynst plowynge by the taile," and the custom of 

 " pulling off the wool yearly from living sheep " was declared illegal. 

 Drainage was discussed with a sense and sagacity which were not 

 rivalled till the nineteenth century. Increased care was given to 

 manuring ; new fertilising agencies were suggested ; the merits of 

 Peruvian guano were explained by G. de la Vega at Lisbon in 1602 ; 

 the use of valuable substances, known to our ancestors but discon- 

 tinued, was revived. Attention was paid to the improvement of 

 agricultural implements. Patents were taken out for draining 

 machines (Burrell, 1628) ; for new manures (1636) ; for unproved 

 courses of husbandry (Chiver, 1637 and 1640) ; for ploughs (Hamil- 

 ton, 1623 ; Brouncker, 1627 ; Parham, 1634) ; for instruments for 

 mechanical sowing (Ramsey, 1634, and Plattes, 1639). On all sides 

 new energies seemed to be aroused. 



Much of the land had changed hands during the preceding cen- 

 tury, and the infusion of new blood into the ownership of the soil 

 introduced a more enterprising and business-like spirit into farming. 

 The increased wealth of landowners showed itself in the erection of 

 Jacobean mansions ; farmer owners, tenant-farmers for lives or 

 long terms of years, copyholders at fixed quit-rents, made money. 

 Only the agricultural labourer still suffered. His wages rose more 

 slowly than the prices of the necessaries of life ; his hold on the 

 land was relaxing ; his dependence upon his labour-power became 

 more complete. He was more secure of employment ; but in this 

 respect alone was his lot altered for the better. 



The promise of improvement was checked by the outbreak of 

 the Civil War. Excepting those who were directly engaged hi the 

 struggle, men seemed to follow their ordinary business and their 

 accustomed pursuits. The story that a crowd of country gentle- 

 men followed the hounds across Marston Moor between the two 

 armies drawn up in hostile array, may not be true ; but it illustrates 

 the temper of a large proportion of the inhabitants. It was the 

 prevailing sense of insecurity, rather than the actual absorption of 

 the whole population in the war, that caused the promise of agri- 

 cultural progress to perish in the bud. In more settled times under 

 the Commonwealth, farming prospects again brightened. But 



