38 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



plough had two wheels ; and, in the light soil of Normandy, was commonly drawn by 

 one ox, or two oxen ; but in England a greater number, according to the nature of the 

 soil, were often necessary. (M. Montfaucon, Monumens de Monarchie Franqois, torn. i. 

 plate 47. ; Girald. Cambrens. Descript. CambricB, c. 17.) In Wales, the person who con- 

 ducted the oxen in the plough walked backwards. (^Girald. Cambrens., c. 17.) Their carts, 

 harrows, scythes, sickles, and flails, from the figures of them still remaining, appear to have 

 been nearly of the same construction with those that are now used. (^Strutt's View, vol. i. 

 pi. 26. 82, 33. and our Jig. 25.) In Wales they did not v f-^ 25 



use a sickle in reaping their corn, but an instrument 

 like the blade of a knife, with a wooden handle at each 

 end. (Girald. Cam., c. 17.) Water-mills for grinding 

 Corn were very common, but they liad also a kind of 

 mills turned by horses, which were chiefly used in 

 their armies, and at sieges, or in places where running 

 water was scarce. (Gaufrid. Vinisauf. Iter Hieroso- 

 lymit., 1. i. c. 33.; M. Paris, Vit. Abbot., p. 94. col. 2.) 

 207. The various operations of husbandry, as 

 manuring, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, 

 threshing, winnowing, &c., are incidentally men- 

 tioned by the writers of this period ; but it is impossible to collect from them a distinct 

 account of the manner in which these operations were performed. Marl seems to have 

 been the chief manure next to dung, employed by the Anglo-Normans, as it had l^een 

 by the Anglo-Saxon and British husbandmen. (M. Paris, Hist., p. 181. ; In Vit. Abbot., 

 p. 101. col. 1.) Summer fallowing of lands designed for wheat, and ploughing them 

 several times, appear to have been common practices of the English farmers of this 

 period : for Giraldus Cambrensis, in his description of Wales, takes notice of it as a 

 great singularity in the husbandmen of that country, " that they ploughed their lands 

 only once a year, in March or April, in order to sow them with oats ; but did not, like 

 other farmers, plough them twice in summer, and once in winter, in order to prepare 

 them for wheat." (Girald- Cambrens. Descript. Cambrue, c. viii. p. 887.) On the border 

 of one of the compartments in the famous tapestry of Bayeux, we see the figure of one 

 man sowing with a sheet about his neck, containing the seed under his left arm, and scat- 

 tering it with his right hand ; and of another man harrowing with one harrow, drawn by 

 one horse. (Montfaucon, Monumens de Monarchie Franqois, tom. i. plate 47.) In two 

 plates of Strutt's very curious and valuable work (fgs. 26, 27.), we perceive the figures 



of several persons engaged in mowing, reaping, threshing, and winnowing ; in all which 

 operations there appears to be little singular or different from modern practice. (Strutt^s 

 Complete View of the Manners, Customs, ^c, of England, vol. i. plates 11, 12.) 



208. Agriculture in Scotland seems to have been in a very imperfect state towards the 

 end of this period. For in a parliament held at Scone, by King Alexander II., A. D. 



1214, it was enacted, that such farmers as had four oxen or cows, or upwards, should 

 labour their lands, by tilling tl^mn with a plough, and should begin to till fifteen days 



