THE OLDEN FARM 321 



to the spinner and weaver, but to the farmer. The 

 area of the farm kingdom where sheep ran by the 

 ten thousand was necessarily large, especially as 

 that was more than a hundred years before Houghnot, 

 writing of new things, said : " Ten acres sown with 

 clover, turnips, &c., will feed as many sheep as one 

 hundred acres thereof would before have done. 1 ' 

 Tillage, vainly enforced by Act of Parliament, now 

 came in by its own advocacy. Two hundred years 

 ago, the practice of soiling or cutting and carrying 

 green crops to the cattle was widely used in England, 

 whereas now it is nearly extinct. It is well-known 

 to American farmers, and is the backbone of Danish 

 intensive culture. The mark of Jethro Tull is on 

 all our fields, but nine- tenths of the ridges and 

 furrows are clothed with permanent grass. It is 

 popularly imagined that the high price of one 

 farmer's product, wheat, was to account for that 

 widespread ploughing ; it is more likely that wool 

 first stimulated it. At any rate, the ninety and a 

 hundred and twenty shillings a quarter of the years 

 before Waterloo could not be reaped without the 

 intermediate clover and " St. Foin," and the ministra- 

 tions of sheep and cattle, and it was probably a 

 better time for the farmer when wheat was half that 

 price and meat had risen, so that there was a 

 steady profit on every course in the rotation. At 

 any rate, in the 'seventies, when wheat had fallen 

 to 2 i$s. a quarter, rent was higher than when it 

 was at 5 and 6. 



The unambiguous story of this palatial farm-house 

 is that bygone farmers employed plenty of capital, 

 and knew the advantages of tillage. The story of 

 21 



