240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



We should remember, moreover, that the agriculture of his 

 time was rude and primitive. " At that time wheat was rarely 

 cultivated and rarely eaten by the poorer classes. Rye, oats 

 and barley were the prevailing crops. A naked fallow, that is 

 to say, a year of barrenness, which was too often a year of 

 exhausting weeds, was the ordinary expedient for restoring 

 the fertility of the soil. Farm-yard manure, exposed to the 

 dissolving influences of the rain, and carelessly applied, was 

 almost the only fertilizer. Artificial grasses, with beans, pease 

 and cabbages, were rarely grown, and turnips were confined 

 to a few sections, and were sown broadcast. Cultivation 

 (except ploughing and harrowing,) was performed almost 

 entirely by manual labor ; the rude implements were usually 

 constructed on the farm, and often in a way to increase labor, 

 instead of to economize it. The cattle were chiefly valued for 

 their dairy qualities or for their power of draught, and were 

 only fattened when they would milk or draw no longer. The 

 greater number of breeds were large-boned and ill-shaped, 

 greedy-eaters, and slow in arriving at maturity ; while, as lit- 

 tle winter food, except hay, was raised, the meat laid oa by 

 grass in summer was lost or barely maintained in winter. 

 Fresli meat for six months of the year was a luxury only 

 enjoyed by the wealthiest personages. " No hoed crops or 

 edible vegetables were cultivated, and even as late as the reign 

 of Henry VIII., Queen Catharine was obliged to send to Flan- 

 ders or Holland {for salad to supply her table. Neither Indian- 

 corn, nor potatoes, nor squashes, nor carrots, nor cabbages nor 

 turnips were known in England till after the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century. The poor peasants subsisted chiefly upon 

 bread made of barley, ground in a quern, or hand-mill, and 

 baked by themselves." When Macaulay, having ascertained 

 the fact that the sum raised by taxation in England, " in a 

 time not exceeding two long lives, has been multiplied thirty 

 fold," would remind those who are alarmed by the increase of 

 the public burdens, of the increase also of public resources, he 

 draws a picture of English agriculture in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, and not long after the death of Bacon, which is extremely 

 interesting. At that time, he says, " The arable land and the 

 pasture land were not supposed by the best political arithmeti- 

 cians of that age to amount to much more than one-half the 



