228 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



the estate, and in connexion with this, and with the fact that 

 his improvements nmde a constant demand for labour, we are 

 not surprised to learn that the workhouse was pulled down as 

 useless, for it was always empty, and this at a time when the 

 working-classes of England were pauperized to an alarming 

 degree. The year 1818 was one of terrible distress all 

 over England in country and town, yet at his sheep-shearing 

 of that year Coke was enabled to say he had trebled the 

 population of his estate and not a single person was out of 

 employment, though everywhere else farmers were turning off 

 hands and cutting down wages. Principally through his agency, 

 between 1804 and 1821, no less than 153 enclosures took 

 place in Norfolk, while between 1790 and 1810, 2,000,000 

 acres of wasteland in England were brought under cultivation 

 largely by his efforts. He is said, indeed, to have transformed 

 agriculture throughout England, and, but for that, the country 

 would not have been able to grow enough food for its support 

 during the war with Napoleon, and must have succumbed. 



