AGRICULTURE. 



raised, and the corn farmers were mined. 

 " They everywhere," says Roger Ascham, " la- 

 bour, economize, and consume themselves 

 to satisfy their owners. Hence so many 

 families dispersed, so many houses ruined, so 

 many tables common to every one, taken 

 away. 11. Mice the honour and strength of 

 the noble yeomanry, are broken up 

 and destroyed." (AxchunCs Epistles, 293 2U5. 

 Bis ; ,-, Latimer, and others, raisec 



their voices in their behalf, and hurled thei 

 iuv. :u the pulpit upon those who op 



. "Let them," said Latimer, in a 

 i MI preached before the king, "let them 

 have siiiiicieut to maintain them, and to fine 

 them in neres>aries. A plough land mus 

 have sheep to dung their ground for bearing 

 corn ; they must have swine for their food, to 

 make th'-ir bacon of; their bacon is their veni- 

 son, it is their necessary food to feed on 

 which they may not lack; they must have 

 other cattle, as horses to draw their p; 

 and i'i. i carriage of things to the in. 

 kine for their milk and cheese, which they 

 must live upon, and pay llu-ir i 



The shot;- .e of that period 



endeavoured to prevent these enclosures by a 

 prohibitory proclamation, M the legislature 

 had done by the statutes 4 lien. 7, c. 16, 19. 

 There doubtle- 



will ]-< njioii any sadden change in the dire'c- 

 tion of the national iiulu-trv, and in none more 

 .elythan in the return fr.-m an agri- 

 cultural to a pastorai mode of life. But, as is 

 observed by one of the most impartial of our 

 very one \\:\* a I--al and social 

 right 'f rnipl'-ying his property as he pleases; 

 and h< \v fur he will make his use of it com- 

 patible with the comforts of others, must be 

 ,i matter of his private consideration, 

 with which no one, without infringing the com- 

 mon freedom of all, can ever interfere. That 

 tial detriment resulted from this exten- 

 .i-losurc no diminution of the riches, 

 ity of the country at large, is 

 clear to every one who surveys the . 

 state and progress of England with a compre- 

 hensive impartiality." (Turners History of 

 Edward Hit Sixth, &c.) " The landlord," he 

 further . meed his rent, but the 



farmer also was demanding more for his pro- 



The evil of converting arable to pasture 

 land cured itself. The increased growth of 

 wool in other countries, and the improvement 

 of their manufactures, by degrees caused the 

 production of it in England to diminish : and 

 as dearths of corn accrued, and the consequent 

 enormous increase of its value rendered its 

 growth more lucrative, pasture-land gradually 

 returned to the dominion of the plough. 



Since that period enclosures have gone on 

 with various, but certainly undiminished, de- 

 grees of activity. More than 3000 enclosure 

 bills were passed in the reign of George III. 

 The land so enclosed was, and is, chiefly dedi- 

 cated to the growth of corn ; but since the field 

 culture of turnips was introduced in the seven- 

 teeth, of mangel wurzel in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, and other improvements in agricultural 

 practice, every farm is ecabled to combine 



AGRICULTURE. 



the advantages of the stock and tillage rms^ 

 bandry. 



Implements. 1\ is very certain that the state 

 of any art is intimately connected with that of 

 its instruments. If these are imperfect it can- 

 not be much advanced ; and this is so univer- 

 sally the case, that agriculture, of course, is no 

 exception. 



1. Norman plough, with the hatchet carried by the 

 ploughman for breaking the clods. 2. Sowing, as re- 

 resentcii bj Strittt. 3. Reaping. 4. Threshing. 5. Whet- 

 ing. 6. Beating hemp. 



We find, in the earliest of our national 

 records, that the plough, the most important 

 implement of husbandmen, was then of s, very 

 rude construction. In general form it rudely 

 resembled the plough now employed, but the 

 vorkmanship was singularly imperfect. This 

 s no matter of surprise ; for among the early 

 nhabitants of this country there were n arti- 

 ficers. The ploughman was also the piough- 

 wright. It was a law of the early Britons that 

 no one should guide a plough until he could 

 make one; and that the driver should make 

 he traces, by which it was drawn, of withs or 

 wisted willow, a circumstance which affords 

 an interpretation to many corrupt terms at 

 resent used by farming men to distinguish 

 he parts of the cart harness. Thus the womb 

 vithy has degenerated into wambtye or wantye; 

 uithtn trees into whipping or whipple trees , be- 

 ides which we have the tail withes, and some 

 >thers still uncorrupted. (Leges Wallicte, 283 

 288.) We read, also, that Easterwin, Abbot 

 )f Wearmouth, not only guided the plough and 

 vinnowed the corn grown on the abbey land?, 

 ut also with his hammer forged the instru- 

 ments of husbandry upon the anvil. (Rede, 

 Hist. Abb. Wearmoth, 296.) Whether the early 

 British or Saxon ploughs had wheels is uncr- 

 ain, but those of the Normans certainly had 

 uch appendages. Pliny says that whtels 

 were first applied to ploughs by the GauJ* 



