THE PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 55 



manure was spread on the common pasture, while in the enclosures 

 it was used for the benefit of land breken up for tillage. 



But the greatest progress in the first half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury seems to have taken place in Norfolk. Everyone has heard of 

 Townshend growing turnips at Raynham, after his quarrel with 

 Walpole; and Young, writing in 1812, after speaking of the period 

 1700-1760 as one of stagnation, owing to low prices ("it is absolutely 

 vain to expect improvements in agriculture unless prices are more dis- 

 posed to rise than to remain long without variations that give encour- 

 agement to the farmer"), admits that the improvements made in 

 Norfolk that time were an exception. In his Eastern Tour (1770) 

 he had spoken of the husbandry " that has rendered the name of this 

 country so famous in the farming world," and given seven reasons for 

 the improvements. These were: (i) enclosing without assistance of 

 Parliament; parliamentary enclosure, "through the knavery of com- 

 missioners and attorneys," was very expensive; "undoubtedly many 

 of the finest loams on the richest marls would at this day have been 

 sheep-walks, had there been any right of commonage on them"; 



(2) marling, for there was plenty of marl under the sand everywhere; 



(3) an excellent rotation of crops the famous Norfolk four years' 

 course of turnips, barley, clover (or clover and rye-grass), and wheat; 



(4) the culture of turnips well hand -hoed; (5) the culture of clover 

 and rye-grass; (6) the granting of long leases; (7) the division of the 

 county chiefly into large farms. " Great farms," he says, "have been 

 the soul of the Norfolk culture," though in the eastern part of the 

 county there were little occupiers of 100 a year. 



If we turn from the cultivation of the soil to the management and 

 breeding of live stock, we shall find that no great progress had been 

 made in this branch during the years 1700-1760. Davenant in 1700 

 estimated the net carcase of black cattle at 370 Ibs., and of a sheep 

 at 28 Ibs. A century later Eden calculated that " bullocks now killed 

 in London weigh at an average 800 Ibs., sheep 80 Ibs., and lambs 

 about 50 Ibs. each"; and Young in 1786 put the weight of bullocks 

 and sheep at 840 Ibs. and 100 Ibs. respectively. But this improvement 

 seems to have come about after 1760. It was not until 1760-1786 

 that Bakewell perfected the new breed of sheep the Leicesters 

 and improved the breed of long-horned cattle, and that the brothers 

 Culley obtained the short-horn, or Durham cattle, from the breed in 

 the valley of the Tees. Some improvement in the breed of sheep had, 



