Agricultural Revolution 5 



pigs and cows were also often destined only to supply their own 

 tables with meat and milk 1 . Whatever else they needed was paid for 

 out of the wages they earned when working outside their own hold- 

 ings. Anything which they did produce over and above what they 

 consumed themselves consisted in live-stock or its products. Some 

 of them kept two or three cows, two or three pigs, geese and poultry, 

 "according as they may have had success 2 ." 



The other small holders too, whether proprietors or farmers, had 

 for their main object the production not of corr) hut of ^ive-stock. It 

 is very difficult to tell on what sized holding, at that time, the pro- 

 duction of corn for the market began. Arthur Young, in 1772, 

 describes the production on a small holding of twelve acres as 

 follows 3 . Enough wheat would be grown to provide the family 

 with bread-corn for the year. The surplus produce, which would 

 come to market, would be (i) in the first place dairy produce ; (2) an 

 acre of barley, assuming that the occupier fed no pigs ; (3) the sow's 

 annual litter, say ten on the average, of which eight would be sold ; 

 (4) two acres of turnips or pease ; and (5) the poultry that were 

 reared. But corn-growing was not a prominent feature even on such 

 small holdings as did send a little to market, either habitually or after 

 a specially good harvest. Even the most impassioned defenders of 

 the little cultivators did not attempt to claim this for them. On the 

 contrary, some of them admit that as a consequence of the large families 

 of the small holders and their often imperfect methods of cultivation, 

 only a very small quantity of that important article was sold by them 4 . 

 But they go on to point out the branches of production in which 

 the small holdings did excel : from them came quantities of beef and 

 mutton, pigs and poultry, fruit and vegetables, eggs, butter and milk 5 . 



1 Stephen Addington, An Enquiry into the Reasons for and against enclosing Open 

 Fields, 2nd ed. Coventry, 1772, p. 33: "Their land furnishes them with wheat and barley 

 for bread, and in many places with beans or peas to feed a hog or two for meat ; with the 

 straw they thatch their cottage, and winter their cow, which gives a breakfast and supper of 

 milk, nine or ten months in the year, for their families. " 



2 A Political Enquiry into the Consequences of enclosing Waste Lands, 1785, p. 44. 



3 Political Essays, 1772, pp. 88 f. 



4 J. Donaldson, Modern Agriculture, Edinburgh, 1795, Vol. I, p. 408. 



5 F. Forbes, The Improvement of Waste Lands, 1778, p. 153 : "The occupiers of small 

 and middling farms keep cows upon each of them, which enables them to keep hogs in 

 proportion; young store also and poultry ; and hence the markets and neighbourhood are 

 supplied with butter, cheese, milk, pigs, veal, fowls and eggs." See also J. Duncumb, 

 A General View of the Agriculture of Herefordshire, 1805, p. 34 : " If they (the small 

 fanners) supplied the public markets with so much less corn as the increased demand of 

 their families required, they made amends in an increased supply of veal, lamb, poultry 

 and butter." 



