CHAPTER XVI 



ARTHUR YOUNG. — CROPS AND THEIR COST. —THE 

 LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET. — THE PROSPERITY 

 OF FARMERS. — THE COUNTRY SQUIRE. — ELKINGTON. 

 — BAKEWELL. — THE ROADS.— COKE OF HOLKHAM 



The history of English agriculture in the latter half of the 

 eighteenth century has been so well described by Arthur 

 Young that any account of it at that time must largely be an 

 epitome of his writings. The greatest of English writers on 

 agriculture was born in 1741, and began farming early ; but, as 

 he confesses himself, was a complete failure. When he was 

 twenty-six he took a farm of 300 acres at Samford Hall in 

 Essex, and after five years of it paid a farmer ^too to take it 

 off his hands, who thereupon made a fortune out of it. He 

 had already begun writing on agriculture, and it must be con- 

 fessed that he began to advise people concerning the art of 

 agriculture on a very limited experience. It paid him, how- 

 ever, much better than farming, for between 1766 and 1775 he 

 realized ;^3,ooo on his works, among which were The Far- 

 mers' Letters, The Southern, Northern, and Eastern Tours. 

 These are his qualifications for writing on agriculture, from his 

 own pen : ' I have been a farmer these many years ' (he was 

 not yet thirty), ' and that not in a single field or two but upon 

 a tract of near 300 acres most part of the time. I have culti- 

 vated on various soils most of the vegetables common in 

 England and many never introduced into field husbandry. I 

 have always kept a minute register of my business in every 

 detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and an accurate com- 



^ Northern Tour, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see 

 R. A. S. E. Journal (3rd Series), iv. i. 



