AGRICULTURE 



IN giving a brief account of the Agriculture of Bucks, it seems 

 desirable to review shortly its history. Several well-known 

 writers have given their impressions of it, though none of 

 them speak in very flattering terms. One, Edward Lawrence, 

 a Surveyor to the then Duke of Buckingham, in a book published 

 1727, gives some insight into the circumstances of that period. Rents 

 appear to have been from ten to fifteen shillings an acre or more, the 

 tenant paying rates and taxes, while the covenants of the leases 

 were very stringent. A great deal of the land was unenclosed, and 

 there were many ' common-fields,' both of arable and pasture. The 

 four-course shift seems to have prevailed and was generally: ist, fallow; 

 and, wheat or barley ; 3rd, beans or peas ; 4th, barley or oats. There 

 were special covenants regulating the growth of woad, weld (one of 

 the mignonette family giving a beautiful yellow dye), madder, etc., the 

 cultivation of which must have been very remunerative, for the ' woad 

 men ' were willing to pay 2 a year extra rent per acre for the privilege of 

 growing them. Labourers' wages were a shilling a day in summer, and 

 9</. and lod. in winter, while domestic servants received about 3 a 

 year. Arthur Young, writing in 1771, seems to have only seen the 

 Aylesbury side of the county, while on his riding tour through the 

 Midlands. He found rents varying from 6s. to 2os. an acre, with an 

 average of about 14*. He condemned the system of farming, the dirty 

 condition of the crops, and also the unenclosed state of most of the 

 land. The course in that district was: ist, fallow; 2nd, wheat; 3rd, 

 beans ; a wasteful system, which merited his censure. The very shallow 

 ploughing, and the deep ridge and furrow, both in arable and pasture, 

 without any underground draining, were also severely condemned. 

 With keen insight he declared that, if the landlords would enclose and 

 drain the land, ' All this vale would make as fine meadows as any in the 

 world.' In common with Lawrence, he protested against the tenants 

 gathering the cow-dung off the fields to dry and burn, and the latter 

 warned stewards to see that the tenants did not use too much of the 

 pig-dung to wash their linens with ! Farming must have improved 

 soon after Young's day, for Cobbett, in his Rural Rides in 1826, speaks 

 eloquently and enthusiastically of all that he saw in the Aylesbury 

 district ; and Youatt, writing some eight years later, compares the Vale 

 of Aylesbury to the justly celebrated Pevensey Level and Romney 

 Marsh. 



Coming to the present time we find that Bucks, like most other 



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