CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES. 439 



wanted or go without. They were much more closely governed by the 

 natural conditions than we are ; their houses were made of local material 

 — which they became adept at working up — their food was determined by 

 regional characteristics ; economic factors as we know them to-day 

 hardly came in. They always wished for, but could not always obtain, 

 good crops of wheat, barley, oats, peas or beans, and grass. Wheat is the 

 most fastidious in its requirements and cannot be grown successfully all 

 over these islands. Oats and rye will grow in colder, wetter conditions, 

 and will tolerate sour soils. They were therefore commonly grown in the 

 west and the north. The old system practised in these islands for nearly 

 a thousand years was a three-course rotation : bread corn — wheat in the 

 east and south, oats or rye in the north and west ; drink corn — barley — 

 or pulse ; then the land was left in weeds or grass. The arable land was in 

 three large fields divided into strips. 



Three great improvements gradually came in and were well marked by 

 the end of the eighteenth century. Addition of marl to land which had 

 previously grown only rye enabled it to carry wheat instead^ ; the marl 

 added enough calcium carbonate to overcome the sourness and sufficient 

 clay to give other necessary properties. All over the country, therefore, 

 marl pits were opened and land was marled in the hope of obtaining the 

 desired wheat. The names ' Marl pit lane,' ' Marl pit field,' ' Ryelands,' 

 and ' Wheatlands ' often survive. 



The second great improvement was the enclosure and division of the 

 arable fields, the commons, and the wastes. While the land was left open 

 no great improvement was possible, for there was no inducement for 

 anyone to do anything. Many survivals of the open fields can still be 

 found in field names. We have ' Harpenden field ' on our own farm, while 

 near us the traces of Pickford Common and Manland Common still persist. 

 A further improvement consisted in the introduction of new crops into 

 the rotations which raised the output of the land by 50 to 100 per cent. 



Four sources of information are available : — 



1. The surveys of the individual counties by the first Board of Agri- 

 culture set up in 1793 under the presidency of Sir John Sinclair. They 

 were printed in 1794-96 in quarto volumes with very wide margins to allow 

 of manuscript notes ; from these a fuller edition was issued in octavo 

 volumes about 1804 to 1812 ; they practically all contained maps, which, 

 however, have been removed from many of the second-hand copies now 

 on the market. These surveys are by far the best made up to that time. 



The corresponding account of Scotland, issued in 1791-99, is called 

 the Statistical Account. 



These surveys form the basis of the numerous descriptions and accounts 

 of the countryside written in the early part of the nineteenth century. 



2. About the middle of the nineteenth century the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England and the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland 

 published in their journals accounts of the agriculture of the various 

 counties. So far as they go these are good ; they are less full than the 

 older surveys, but they carry the story on to its next stage, for the period 

 was one of great technical achievement. 



« E.g. Basil Quayle, ' General View of the Agriculture of the Isle of Man, 1794,' 

 and many other surveys published about then. 



