8o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



was repeated and made perpetual by a law of the next 

 year.^ 



But legislation was in vain ; the price of wool was now 

 beginning to advance so that the attraction of sheep farming 

 was irresistible, and laws, which asked landowners and farmers 

 to turn from what was profitable to what was not, were little 

 likely to be observed, especially as the administration of 

 these laws was in the hands of those whose interest it was 

 that they should not be observed. 



Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from 

 fresh efforts. a5 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of 

 affairs in its preamble : as many persons have accumulated 

 into few, great multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, 

 especially sheep, putting such land as they can get into pasture, 

 and enhanced the old rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, 

 wool, and poultry almost double, ' by reason whereof a mer- 

 vaylous multitude and nombre of the people of this realme be 

 not able to provide drynke and clothes necessary for themselves, 

 but be so discoraged with myserie and povertie that they fall 

 dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye for hunger and 

 colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these accumu- 

 lators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep, 

 that was used to be sold for 2s. ^d. or 3J. at the most, was now 

 from 4^. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some 

 shires was accustomed to be sold for i^d. or 20^., is now 

 3 J. 4^. to 4 J. ; and in others, where it was 3j. ^d. to 35-. it is 

 now 4s. Sd. to ^s. 



It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, 

 was to keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of 

 the realm, though lambs under one year were not to count. 

 The frequency of these laws proves their inefficacy, and the con- 

 duct of Henry VIII was the chief cause of it ; for while Parlia- 

 ment' was complaining of the decrease of tillage he gave huge 

 tracts of land taken from the monasteries to greedy courtiers, 

 1 7 Hen. VIII, c. i. 



