198 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 



Under this system, whatever might be the differences or capacities 

 of the soil, the whole of the land, with rare exceptions, was placed 

 under the same unvarying rotation. It was this inability to put 

 land to its best use which especially roused Young's indignation. 

 When he made his Eastern Tour in 1770, he found nearly all the 

 Vale of Aylesbury cultivated in arable open-fields, lying in broad, 

 high, crooked ridges. The course of cropping was (1) Fallow, 

 (2) Wheat or Barley, (3) Beans. The land was ploughed from two 

 to four inches deep, and five horses were used to each plough. 

 Beans were sown broadcast, and never hoed. Drainage was badly 

 needed, for the ridge system had failed. But the lands were so 

 intermixed that any other system was difficult, if not impossible. 

 Even in June, only the tops of the ridges were dry, and, in the 

 winter, most of the land, crops and all, were soaked with water. 

 As a result, the products were as bad as the land was good. The 

 Vale of Aylesbury farmers, whom Ellis (1733) describes as " one 

 of the most obstinate bigotted sort," " reap bushels where they 

 should reap quarters." Both in Buckinghamshire and in Northamp- 

 tonshire, the cow-dung was collected from the fields, mixed with 

 short straw, kneaded into lumps, daubed on the walls of buildings, 

 and, when dry, used as fuel. " There cannot," says Young, " be 

 such an application of manure anywhere but among the Hotten- 

 tots." * Naseby Field in 1770 consisted of 6000 acres, all cultivated 

 on the open-field system, on the same course of cropping which 

 Young found established on village farms from the Vale of Ayles- 

 bury to the north of Derbyshire. Round the mud-built village lay 

 a few pasture enclosures. The three arable fields were crossed and 

 re-crossed by paths to the different holdings, filled with a cavernous 

 depth of mire ; the pastures were in a state of nature, overrun 

 with nettles, furze, and rushes. The farm-houses and buildings, 

 all collected in the village, were two miles distant from a great part 

 of the fields. When Young visited the village again in 1785, he 

 found that the land in tillage for spring corn was " perfectly matted 

 with couch." Marshall, a less prejudiced observer than Young, 

 visited the Vale of Gloucester in 1789. There he found half the 

 arable land unenclosed. Near Gloucester, and in other parts of 

 the district, there were extensive tracts of land, called " Every 



1 It was no uncommon practice. Edward Laurence suggests (1727) that 

 " Cow-dung not to be burnt for fuel " should be inserted as a restrictive 

 covenant in all leases. He mentions Yorkshire and Lincolnshire as counties 

 where dung was frequently used as fuel. 



