PRESIDENTIAL ADDKESS 529 



then spring coin, ;ind then leaving tlic laiul fallow and ploughing ii so as to bury 

 the weeds that grew up. Thus, the rotation became, 



Winter corn. 



Spring corn, 



Fallow ; 

 and it would be adopted for the best of all po*<sib!e reasons— because there was 

 no better way. So we find Tusser saying ' : — 



' First rie and then barlie the champion sales 

 Or wheat before barlie be champion waies : 

 But drink before bread corne with Middlesex men, 

 Then lay on more compas, and fallow agen.' 



The 'compas' or farmyard manure was obtained from lieasts fed on hay 

 drawn from the meadows. There was also some grazing on the stubbles. 



Thus there was a transfer of fertility from the grass-land to the arable, 

 which, together with the growth of leguminous weeds on the stubbles, seems to 

 have kept up the fertility of the arable land and allowed of the production of 

 crops that have been estimated at about ten bushels of wheat to the acre. 



When improvements first began to be recorded they were made in two 

 directions : in the system of tenure, and in the method of working. 



On the usual system of tenure the arable land was divided into strips, which 

 each year were distributed among the villeins and cotters in such manner that 

 each should have his share of good and of poor land. But as each man only 

 had the strip for a year there was no great inducement to make laborious per- 

 manent improvements. It was not till the land was enclosed that the cultivator 

 was encouraged to do his best. And so the enclosure of the land — though at 

 the time attended by much trial and tribulation — is now recognised as having 

 been an essential condition to progress. Under these new conditions the yields 

 have been estimated in certain districts at about twenty bushels of wheat, thirty 

 of barley, and forty of oats and pulse. 



The second defect of the old system was the lack of food for stock. Nothing 

 beyond a certain amount of hay was provided for the cattle to eat during 

 winter. So long as the grass held out they were well enough off, but from 

 October onwards there was little for them to live upon, and so many were 

 slaughtered and salted. 



This lack of winter-keep does not seem to have worried the common people. 

 A dry summer must have given mediieval beasts a bad time, but the country 

 proverbs are in favour of dry summers, probably because they suit the corn 

 best, and corn of some sort formed the chief item in the countryman's diet. 

 Only at killing time, when there was more meat than could be disposed of, 

 would they come in for any great share, and then the village feasts were held, 

 which still survive in many places in an attenuated and modified form. 



' At Hallowtide slaughter time entereth in. 

 And then doth the husbandman's feasting begin,' 

 said Tusser. 



The first improvements came from Flanders, which has always been a centre 

 of high farming. At a time when history was moving in a different course, and 

 Royalist refugees from England were finding shelter in Flanders, Sir Richard 

 Weston, a Royalist landowner in Surrey, tells us of a conversation he had with 

 a Flemish merchant in 1644 as to the reason why the farmers on the light and 

 apparently poor land between Ghent and Antwerp were accounted the richest 

 in Flanders. ' I will tell you (said hee) the reason, why it yeildeth more profit, 

 is because that Land is naturel to bear Flax, which is called the Wealth of 

 Flanders . . . and after the Flax is pulled, it will bear a Crop of 2'urneps . . . 

 after that Crop is off, you may sowe the same Land with Oats : and upon them 

 Clover grass .seed onelie harrowing it with bushes, which will come up after 

 the Oafs are mowed, and that year yield you a verie great Pasture till 

 Christmas : and the next year following you may cut that grass three times, 

 and it will everio time bear such a burden, and so good to feed all sorts of 



' Five Hundred I'oinfx of Husbandry, 1573. 

 iyi6 M M 



