AGRICULTURE. 



consumption; for in a very wet, inclement I 

 year, 1270, wheat sold for six pounds eight ; 

 shillings per quarter, which, calculating for | 

 the difference of the value of money, was 

 equal to twenty-five pounds of our present cur- 

 rency. It continued an article of comparative 

 luxury till nearly the 17th century commenced ; 

 for in the household books of several noble , 

 families it is mentioned that immchets, and 

 other loaves of wheat flour, were served at the 

 master's table, but there is only notice taken 

 of coarser kinds for the servants. That the 

 cultivation of wheat was very partial in the 

 reign of Elizabeth is attested by Tusser, who, 

 writing at that period, says, 



"In SiuTolk again, whereas wheat never grew, 

 Good husbandry used, good wheat-land I knew." 



As the climate has improved by the clearing 

 and drying of the surface of the country, so 

 proportionally, has the cultivation of wheat 

 extended. 



It was probably owing to the fickle and in- 

 clement climate of England rendering the 

 successful completion of harvest a much rarer 

 and more hazardous event than now, that our 

 forefathers made on the occasion such marked 

 and joyous festivities. We do not know the 

 motive that actuated the farmer, but no dread 

 of an uncertain harvest could have mad.- him 

 more prompt and vigorous, who, in 1289, cut 

 and stored 200 acres of corn in two days. 

 The account is given in "The History of Haw- 

 stead." About 250 reapers, thatchers, and 

 others, were employed during one day, and 

 more than 200-the next. The expenses of the 

 lord on this occasion are thus stated : Nine- 

 teen reapers, hired for a day at their own 

 board, 4d. each ; eighty men one day, an<l kept 

 at the lady's board, 4cf. each ; 140 men, hired 

 for one day, at 3d. each ; wages of the head 

 reaper, 6,. 3d. ; of the brewer, 3*. 4tf. ; of the 

 cook, 3*. 4t/. ; thirty acres of oats, tied up by 

 the job, l.. Sd. ; three acres of wheat, cut and 

 tied up by the job, Is. lie/.; five pair of 

 gloves," &c. 



Barley is probably the grain which was 

 most cultivated by the early Britons. The re- 

 presentation of it occurs upon their coins. 

 (Camden's Britannia, by Gibson, Ixxxviii.) It 

 was not only the grain from which their pro- 

 genitors, the Cymri, made their bread, but 

 from which they made their favourite bever- 

 age, beer. 



Oats being well-known and cultivated by the 

 Germans and other continental nations when 

 Pliny wrote, they were probably known also 

 to this island in the earliest ages. In all 

 periods, even to the present time, bread made 

 of oatmeal has been a very prominent part of 

 the food of the inhabitants of the northern parts 

 of Britain. "In Lancashire," says Gerarde, 

 in 1597, "it is their chiefest bread-corn, for 

 jamrocks, haver-cakes, thorffe-cakes, and those 

 which are called generally oaten-cakes ; and 

 for the most part they call the grain hover, 

 whereof they do likewise make drink for want 

 of barley." It is so hardy that it is admirably 

 calculated for a cold climate, and there is I 

 scarcely any soil in which it will not be pro- ! 

 ductive. In southern climates it will not 

 flourish. 



AGRICULTURE. 



" Rye," says Gerarde, groweth very plenti- 

 fully in the most parts of Germany and Polo- 

 nia, as appeareth by the great quantity 

 brought into England in times of scarcity of 

 corn, as happened in the year 1596; and at 

 other times, when there was a general want of 

 bread-corn, by reason of the abundance of 

 rain that fell the year before, whereby great 

 penury ensued, as well of cattle, and all other 

 victuals, as of all manner of grain. It groweth, 

 likewise, very well in most places of England, 

 especially towards the north." 



Its hardiness probably rendered it a prin- 

 cipal grain with the early Britons; but as it is 

 a great impoverisher of the soil upon which it 

 grows, and the grain makes very inferior 

 bread, it is now cultivated to a very^mall 

 extent. 



Peas have been extensively cultivated in 

 England from a very early period; but they 

 have been much less since the bean has be- 

 come a more general field crop, which it did 

 not till within the present century. Lentils 

 were brought to England about. 1548. Gerarde 

 says he had heard they were cultivated as fod- 

 der near Waterford. Maize, or Indian corn, 

 was made known in England in 1562. It is 

 commonly cultivated in the south of France 

 as a field crop, and for the same purpose was 

 tried in England in 1828, at the recommenda- 

 tion of Mr. Cobbett, but it has not succeeded. 

 Tares, in 1566, according to Ray, were grown 

 as a seed crop, and given to horses, mixed 

 with oats and peas, though they were some- 

 times cut green as fodder. This is now their 

 chief use. 



Potatoes were introduced from South Ame- 

 rica, by Sir Walter Raleigh, about 1586. Sir 

 Robert Southwell, President of the Royal Soci- 

 ety, informed the Fellows, in 1693, that his 

 father introduced them into Ireland, having 

 received them from Sir Walter. (MS. Journal 

 of h'oyal Society.') It long continued to be 

 neglected by gardeners. In 1663, however, 

 attention was drawn to its extensive culture. 

 But notwithstanding the exertions of the Royal 

 Society to effect this purpose, potatoes did not 

 become a field crop till the early part of the 

 last century. They became so in Scotland 

 about 1730, a day-labourer of the name of 

 Prentice having the honour of first cultivating 

 them largely two years previously. Every 

 county of England now grows them exten- 

 sively, ancashire and Cheshire are particu- 

 larly celebrated for them. In the counties 

 round London, especially in Essex, about two 

 thousand acres are annually cultivated for 

 supplying the metropolis with this root. 



Turnips and clover, though known in Eng- 

 land during time immemorial, were never 

 much cultivated in the field before the early 

 part of the seventeenth century, and we men- 

 tion them together, because their introduction 

 among the farmer's crops caused the greatest 

 improvement in the art that it ever received. 

 In 1684, it is observed as a modern discovery, 

 " sheep fatten very well on turnips, these prov- 

 ing an excellent nourishment for them in 

 hard winters, when fodder is scarce ; for they 

 will not only eat the greens, but feed on the 

 roots in the ground, scooping them out even 



43 



