AGRARIAN EVOLUTION SINCE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 47 



The Fylde was in 1870 an important stock district. Half the land was in 

 grass and much of the arable produced fodder crops. There were more head 

 of cattle than of sheep, and if the sheep be reduced to cow-equivalents the 

 relatively smaller part of sheep in Fylde stock economy is clearly demonstrated. 

 Of the cattle, rather more than half were cows and heifers in milk and in calf 

 (the dairy herd), over one-third cattle under two years old, and only one-tenth 

 cattle over two years old other than the dairy herd (mainly fattening stock). 

 Compared with the country as a whole, the young stock were in about normal 

 proportions, but the dairy herd was relatively more and the fattening cattle 

 relatively less important. Clearly the Fylde was then, as now, a dairying and 

 not a feeding district. The density of cattle per 100 acres of permanent grass 

 was higher than for the country as a whole. The implication is that the grass 

 was of relatively good quality, for the use of artificial feeding stuffs in summer 

 cannot have begun on any extensive scale at this date. 



From 1870 onwards change has been continuous. The acreage under the 

 plough has steadily declined save for an increase during the later years of the 

 Great War to the level of what it had been during the 1880-90 decade. It 

 is now little more than one-fifth of the total cultivated land. The decline has 

 been most pronounced on the strong loams, the corn-growing land of the 

 eighteenth century and earlier, and least on the sands and reclaimed moss. By 

 far the greater part of the arable in the Fylde is now on moss and sandy soils, 

 and the strong land is predominantly in grass. The transference of arable from 

 heavy to relatively light soils, newly brought into cultivation, amounted to a 

 complete reversal of agricultural distributions and is a local example of a change 

 common to the whole country. Within the reduced arable acreage there have 

 also been changes in rotation. The proportion under corn has declined and 

 under rotation grass has increased, save for the temporary reversal of the trend 

 during the Great War. The proportion under grass reached its maximum 

 immediately after the very low corn prices during the ' nineties,' when the long 

 ley became particularly common. The acreage under wheat has declined 

 continuously save for a temporary recovery during the Great War and the 

 contemporary recovery due to the Wheat Act. In the Eastern Counties the 

 recovery in the wheat acreage had begun in 1932, but in the Fylde it was 

 delayed until 1933. In general the decline in wheat has been balanced by an 

 increase in the proportion under oats, which is now the only corn grown on 

 many farms. The grain most natural to the district has re-asserted its pre- 

 dominance. Barley and beans have practically ceased to be grown, and the 

 practice of an occasional bare fallow has been discontinued. The disappearance 

 of beans and bare fallow testifies to the withdrawal of the arable from the strong 

 lands. The proportion under roots has increased, but particularly that under 

 potatoes, for which there is a strong demand in industrial Lancashire. The 

 steady increase in ' other crops ' is to a large extent accounted for by market- 

 gardening on the Marton Moss, near Blackpool, and in recent years by land 

 under glasshouse cultivation both on Marton Moss and on the mam Blackpool- 

 Preston and Blackpool-Garstang roads. 



There have been changes in stock of a somewhat parallel order. The size of 

 the dairy herd has continuously grown, and there are to-day over twice as many 

 cows and heifers in milk and in calf as in 1870. The dairy cow, with its 

 requirements of grass and hay, now dominates the agricultural economy of the 



