AGRICULTURE 



IN the county of Durham as elsewhere in England there were large 

 areas of uninclosed waste land till the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. Between 1756 and 1797 over 1,500 private Inclosure Acts 

 were passed, and finally a general Commons Inclosure Act was passed 

 in 1 80 1. During this period the county took its full share in the develop- 

 ment of English agriculture, as is well shown by comparing Arthur Young's 

 Northern Tour, 1768, with Bailey's account of the agriculture of Durham in 

 1810. Young, in his Tour, describes how he crossed the Tees to Barnard 

 Castle, and proceeded thence to Middleton-in-Teesdale and further west. He 

 speaks of the valley towards Middleton as ' a noble extensive valley, inter- 

 sected with hedges and a few walls into sweet inclosures which, being quite 

 below the point of view, are seen distinct, though almost numberless'; thus 

 showing that a considerable amount of the valley land was inclosed at that 

 time. Beyond Middleton he still found inclosures, and describes the wild 

 banks of the Tees as ' clothed with the freshest verdure, and cut by hedges 

 full of clumps of wood, and scattered with straggling trees.' It is evident, 

 therefore, that hedgerow timber is of old standing in the county. Young 

 noted that grass inclosures in the valley were let at 25*. an acre, and that 

 parts of the moors recently inclosed by the then Earl of Darlington, after 

 * paring, burning and liming, sowing with turnips, oats and hard grain, 1 and 

 laying down with grass seeds,' produced a rental of js. 6d. an acre. He also 

 stated that a very large amount of the waste land of the district was well 

 worth inclosing. His description of the Earl of Darlington's Home Farm 

 at Raby is full of interest. Its extent was about 1,100 acres, of which 430 

 were arable, 288 meadow for mowing, and 357 pasture. The rent was 

 estimated at 800. Thirty-three labourers were employed, including six boys, 

 and there were twenty horses and eighteen draught-oxen. The rotation of 

 crops varied, but was usually: (i) fallow, (2) wheat, (3) fallow (dunged), 

 (4) barley, (5) swedes. Peas or turnips might take the place of one of the 

 fallows. The farm buildings were extensive and included a large barn, feed- 

 ing-houses for fattening cattle, and even a sheep-yard, with a covered shed 

 for the sheep in bad weather, while the urine from the animals was not 

 allowed to drain away, but was collected in a reservoir and used as manure. 

 In connexion with these buildings Young notes that he has 'seen a vast 

 number of farms in this part of the kingdom that have nothing deserving 

 the name of a farm-yard,' and urges the need and the advantage of protection 

 of cattle during the winter. In the previous year the grass land had included 

 in its stocking thirty-seven Scotch cattle and fourteen cows. The cows were 

 polled, in order to do less injury to the young plantations, and also because 



1 Wheat or wheat and rye. 

 357 



