Agriculture Our Most Important Industry 5 



We shall find in the following chapters that British 

 agriculture has a long and progressive history, and as 

 to its prime importance we shall come to the same 

 conclusion as Dr Johnson, who wrote thus in the 

 Rambler in 1751 : " If we estimate dignity by immediate 

 usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and 

 noblest science." 



2. THE EARLY YEARS OF BRITISH 

 AGRICULTURE 



Before the Norman Conquest, and for hundreds of 

 years afterwards, the greater part of the arable land 

 in a parish or manor was possessed by the lord and 

 the tenants, both free and serf, in the shape of strips 

 or furrows in common fields. 



Besides the cultivated land there was always a 

 considerable area of common pasture, sometimes open 

 and sometimes enclosed, and generally a wood in which 

 hogs were fed. In the Domesday Book there are 

 constant references to these woods, and their size may 

 be estimated from the number of hogs that could be 

 kept in them. Thus, in Walthamstow, we find that 

 the woods could provide food for 300 swine. 



We shall get a better idea of the land and its value, 

 from an agricultural point of view, if we remember 

 that, in each parish or manor, there was the lord's 

 land and the land held by the tenants. The lord's 

 house stood in the middle of his land, and was the centre 

 of activity for the manor or parish. The manor house 

 was generally built of wood, rarely, in pre -Norman 



