40 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Tart I. 



of Henry VII. Tlie dearths of this period furnish another proof of the low state of 

 agriculture. Wheat in 1437 and 1438 rose from 4s. or 4s. 6(/., the ordinary price per 

 quarter, to II. 6s. 8d., equivalent to 13^. 6s. 8d. of our money. Stow observes that, ip 

 these extremities, the common people endeavoured to preserve their wretched lives, by 

 drying the roots of herbs and converting them into a kind of bread. Land in those days 

 was sold for ten years' purchase, so great was the insecurity of possession. 



213. Ajs,riculture in Scotland was at a low ebb during the tliirteenth, fourteenth, and 

 fifteenth centuries, on account of the long and ruinous wars in which the country was 

 engaged. A law passed in 1424 enacts that every labourer of " simple estate " dig a 

 piece of ground iaily, of seven feet square ; another in 1457, that farmers who had 

 eight oxen should sow every year one firlot (bushel) of wheat, half a firlot of pease, and 

 forty beans, under the pain of ten shillings to be paid to tlie baron ; and if the baron did 

 not do tlie same tiling to the lands in liis possession, he should pay the same penalty to 

 the king. 



214. From the accession of Henri/ VII. in 1485, to nearly the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, England enjoyed peace. To remove the effects of former wars, however, 

 required a considerable time. The high price of labour, and the conversion of so much 

 land to tillage, gave rise to different impolitic statutes, prohibiting the exportation of 

 corn ; while a great demand was created for wool by the manufactures of the Nether- 

 lands, which tended to enhance the value of pasture lands, and depopulate the country. 

 The flocks of individuals, in these times, sometimes exceeded twenty thousand, and an 

 act was passed by Henry VIII., restricting them to a tenth of that number, apparently 

 eluded from the partial exception of hereditary opulence. Had the restraints imposed on 

 the exportation of com been transferred to wool, the internal consumption would have 

 soon regulated the respective prices of those articles ; the proportion between arable and 

 pasture lands would soon have been adjusted ; and the declining cultivation of the country 

 restored. An improved cultivation was reserved, however, for a future period, when 

 persecution extirpated manufactures from the Netherlands ; then, when the exportation of 

 English wool had subsided, and its price diminished, the farmer or landholder, disap- 

 pointed of his former exuberant profits, discovered the necessity of resuming tlie plough, 

 and restoring his pastures to culture. {Henry, xii. 261.) 



215. Of the state of agriculture in Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

 little can be stated. According to Major (Historia Britannica, Paris, 1526), a native of 

 Berwick, " the peasants neither enclosed nor planted, nor endeavoured to ameliorate the 

 sterility of the soil." According to Fynnis Moryson, the produce of the country consisted 

 chiefly of oats and barley ; but it would appear from Chalmers that wheat was cultivated 

 in Scotland, at least upon the church lands, so early as the thirteenth century. Different 

 laws were enacted for planting groves and hedges, pruning orchards and gardens, and 

 forming parks for deer : but it is not the barren injunctions of statutes that will excite a 

 spirit of improvement in a country. 



SuBSECT. 4. History of Agriculture, from the Time of Henry VIII. to the Revolution 



in 1688. 



216. Agriculture, soon after the beginning of the sixteenth century, partook of the general 

 improvement which followed tlie invention of the art of printing, the revival of literature, 

 and the more settled authority of government ; and, instead of the occasional notices of 

 historians, we can now refer to regular treatises, written by men who engaged eagerly in 

 this neglected, and hitherto degraded, occupation. 



217. The culture of hops was either introduced or revived early in the reign of Henry 

 VIII. ; and that of flax was attempted, but without success, though enforced by law. 

 (Holinshead, p. 110, 111. ; 24 Hen. 8. c. 4.) The legislature at that time endeavoured 

 to execute, by means of penalties, those rational improvements which have since been 

 fostered and cherished by bounties ; or, what is better, pursued from the common motive 

 of self-interest. 



218. The breeding of horses was now much encouraged. To tlie passion of the age, 

 and the predilection of the monarch for splendid tournaments, may be attributed the 

 attention bestowed on a breed of horses of a strength and stature adapted to the weight 

 of the complicated panoply with which the knight and his courser were both invested. 

 Statutes of a singular nature were enacted, allotting for deer parks a certain propor- 

 tion of breeding mares, and enjoining, not the prelates and nobles only, but those 

 whose wives wore velvet bonnets, to have stallions of a certain size for their saddle. 

 The legal standard was fifteen hands in horses, thirteen in mares, and " unlikely tits " 

 were, without distinction, consigned to execution. (27 Hen. 8. cap. 6. ; 36 Hen. 8. 

 cap. 13. See Barringtons Observations on the Statutes, p. 443.) James the Fourth, 

 of Scotland, with more propriety, imported horses from foreign countries in order to 

 improve the degenerate breed of his own. {Pitscotlic, p. 153.) The cultivation of 

 grasses for their winter provend was still unknown ; nor were asses propagated in 



