250 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



The parish of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, paid in direct 

 taxes a greater sum than the lands of the whole parish could 

 be let for. 



Another very general complaint was of the collection of 

 tithe in kind, a most awkward and offensive method, causing 

 great expense and waste, which, however, had given way in 

 many places to compounding. 



Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of 

 high prices and protection.^ One may naturally ask, if much 

 money had been made by farmers during these years, where 

 had it all gone to that they were reduced at the first breath of 

 adversity to such straits ? Some allowance must be made for 

 the fact that these accounts come from those interested in the 

 land, who were always ready to make the most of misfortune 

 with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a notorious 

 grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants 

 believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived 

 accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all 

 because of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both 

 were grumbling because prices had come back to their natural 

 level after an unnatural inflation.^ 



Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and 

 Somerset, and Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a con- 

 siderable quantity of hemp grown in Shropshire.^ In that 

 county there was a small plot of ground, called ' the hemp- 

 yard,' appendant to almost every farm-house and to many of 

 the best sort of cottages. Whenever a cottager had 10 or 

 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from is. 6d. to is. 6d. 

 a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled him to 



^ There were some exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of replies 

 to the letters were couched in the above spirit. 



'^ At a time when landlords formed the majority in Parliament, it is 

 curious to find a substantial farmer asserting that ' the landed interest has 

 been, since the corn law of 1773, held in a state of complete vassalage to 

 the commercial and manufacturing, and the farmers of the country in 

 a state very little superior to that of Polish peasants.' 



' Review of Western Department, pp. 249, 250. 



