A HISTORY OF KENT 



few modifications, is still widely used in Mid- Kent and the Weald, with three horses, however, 

 or at most four on the heavy soils. 



In the succession of crops there was, as at the present day, a marked absence of any settled 

 practice in the county generally. On the rich soils near Faversham, Sandwich and Deal (i) 

 barley or oats, (2) beans or peas, (3) wheat was the course followed. Sometimes a crop of 

 canary-seed was sown on the bean-stubble. In Sheppey beans and wheat were taken alternately, 

 and once in six or eight years a summer fallow took the place of beans in order to clean 

 the land. In Thanet a four-course system, but with great variations, was followed — (i) fallow, 

 (2) barley, (3) clover, (4) wheat, and on the deep rich loams, beans followed by wheat and 

 then barley, Thanet barley being celebrated throughout the country. Sainfoin was much 

 grown on the Chalk lands. It was sown with Lent corn, and with good management would 

 yield as much as sixty cwt. of hay to the acre and last for ten or twelve years. Summer fallow- 

 ing was common. In the Weald, tenants were bound to lay a hundred bushels of lime 

 per acre on the wheat fallows. 



Draught animals were brought from the Midlands while young. In Thanet and East 

 Kent some were bred, while Flemish and half-bred Flemish horses were also found there. 

 Sheppey horses were bred from a native stock long established in that island. 



Sheep were bred on the uplands of East Kent and fattened on the marsh-pastures. Hardly 

 any sheep were bred in the Weald, but many were indifferently wintered there. The main- 

 stay of the Weald farmers was the fattening of cattle, which were disposed of from March to 

 June. Many Welsh cattle were fattened also on the marsh-lands of East Kent. 



Landed property at this time was very much divided, and the number of yeomen was 

 considered to be increasing. Few farms on the richer soils exceeded two hundred acres, 

 though on poorer lands they were frequently very much larger. The average rent in 1 796 

 was put at 15/. an acre with a range of 5/. up to 30/., and for choice land as much as £^ 

 an acre. 



The older farm servants received 10s. to los. 6d. per week without, or £S to £13 a year 

 with board ; younger hands, from £'i a year upwards ; dairymaids, £j\. to ^5 a year ; women- 

 weeders 8^. to lod., and children 6d. a day. Harvestmen earned £■} los. to £/^, with board, 

 for five weeks' work. These rates were said to be nearly double those obtained thirty years 

 previously. 



About fifty years later, in 1845, Buckland's report on Kent Agriculture appeared in the 

 Royal Agricultural Society's Journal. In the interval a great deal had been done to advance 

 the state of husbandry by draining, by clearing away useless hedges, by deep culture, by the 

 extended use of fallow crops, and other improved methods, and the heavier crops obtained 

 from the soil testified to the general progress made.'- Rents had risen considerably, ranging 

 from 6s. on the inferior Chalk soils to 50J. on the lands north of Canterbury, and even 60s. 

 per acre or more on the best pastures of Romney Marsh. Much waste land had been inclosed 

 and the cultivation of root and green crops enabled an increased number of cattle and sheep 

 to be reared and fattened. Improved Kent sheep were coming into favour in various parts 

 of the county. Market-gardening of an intensive character was increasingly carried on near 

 London, and it was no uncommon thing for gardeners to lay on 100 or 120 tons of manure per 

 acre. Cattle were grazed in the Greenwich, Woolwich, Flumstead and Erith marshes, and 

 Shorthorn cows were kept for the supply of milk to the metropolis. 



During the last thirty years Kent has, in common with other parts of the country, suffered 

 much from the great fall that has taken place in the price of many kinds of agricultural produce. 

 The districts that have felt the depression most keenly have been the heavy wheat and bean 

 lands, thousands of acres of which have been laid down, or have tumbled down, to pasture. 

 The characteristic changes which have occurred are concisely indicated in the following 



^ Official returns of the produce of crops are only available since 1885. The yields per acre in 

 Kent during the past two decades have been as follows : — 



Wheat (bushels) . . 



Barley „ 



Oats „ . . 



Beans „ 



Peas „ . . 



458 



