CHAPTER IV 



THE WEEDS OF CULTIVATION 



IN walking over such tracts of country, as the South Downs, it 

 is possible to notice traces of the ridge and furrow, which possibly 

 point to the fact that at one time the land was under the plough. 

 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there could not have 

 been much less Wheat grown than there is at present, and there may 

 have been more ; for in those days the population was fed on the 

 food grown in England and wheaten bread formed a considerable 

 part of the peasant's diet. Towards the end of the fourteenth, 

 and during the fifteenth, century, when wool was very much in 

 demand and labour scarce, the acreage of land devoted to pasture 

 increased considerably. Sheep-keeping was at that time the most 

 profitable part of farming. In 1436 the growing of corn had so 

 decreased that politicians became alarmed, and an Act was passed 

 to keep up the price of corn and thus encourage tillage. Up to the 

 end of the eighteenth century, wool was one of the chief sources of 

 profit to the English farmer, and England was then mainly a 

 pasture country. 



The work of Arthur Young in agriculture, coinciding as it did 

 with the industrial revolution that was taking place owing to the 

 introduction of machinery in manufacturing districts, rapidly 

 changed the methods of farming. Waste land, and much of the land 

 that had been held in common, was brought under wheat cultiva- 

 tion. Prices fluctuated during the Napoleonic wars from about 

 635. to 1155. the quarter. In those days it paid to grow wheat. 

 With the beginning of the nineteenth century may be compared 

 its closing years, which witnessed a remarkable shrinkage in the 

 amount of wheat grown. In 1871 there were in England three 

 and a quarter million acres under wheat ; in 1901, only about a 

 million and a half. England is now dependent on other countries 

 for her food supply, and is again mainly a pasture country. 



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