200 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



on the whole badly managed and unprofitable. The average 

 cow ate 2| acres of grass, and the rent of this with labour and 

 other expenses made the cost £^ a year per cow, and its 

 average produce was not worth more than £^ 6s. ^d} This 

 scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots, 

 cabbages, &c., for their cows, and to their wrong management 

 of pigs, kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management 

 the nett return could be made as much as £4. i^s. od. per cow. 



The management of sheep in the north of England was 

 wretched. In Northumberland the profit was reckoned at \s. 

 a head, partly derived from cheese made from ewes' milk. 

 The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the wool was so bad as not to 

 be worth more than yi. or 4^. per Ib.^ 



Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account 

 testifies : 



Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven 

 pigs in April and eleven in October : 



We have seen that Young thought little of the ' new hus- 

 bandry ' ; he does not even give Tull the credit of inventing the 

 drill : ' Mr. Tull perhaps again invented it. He practised it 



^ Northern Tour, iv. 167. ^ Ibid. iv. 186. 



' This large item is explained by the fact that a bailiff was employed 

 to sell, and no bailiff could find customers * without feeling the same 

 drought as stage coachmen when they see a sign'. — Young, Farmer'' s 

 Letters, p. 403. 



