Arable Land 
carriages and farmers’ carts; even in Burns’s days, 
horses are said to have been drowned not in fords but 
actually suffocated in the mud of the King’s highway ! 
Thorn scrub seems to have been very common and 
there were very few enclosures. Such agriculture as 
did exist seems to have been of a very pettifogging 
character. 
This subject is a fascinating one, and also of great 
practical importance ; but we have no space here to 
treat it adequately. 
At a very much earlier period in Roman times the 
Britons seem to have practised “ nomadic agriculture,” 
that is, they burned down stretches of the forest or 
scrub, and sowed corn on it until the land was absolutely 
exhausted. Then it was left to itself and grew weeds, 
thorny bushes, bracken, and anything that could escape 
the ravages of numerous grazing animals, until it was 
again fit to be burnt and resown. More reasonable 
systems were beginning to prevail when the Saxons 
had conquered the country. 
King Alfred says: “Sethe wille wyrcan wast baere 
lond, ateo hin of than acre acfest sona fearn, and thornas 
and figrsas swasame weods.” Alfred is pointing out that 
ifa man wants to work waste land, he must clear off 
from his acre the bracken, furze, thorns and weeds. 
He was zof to cut and then burn away the rubbish. 
That method, as the Saxons had probably discovered, 
destroys all the good humus that has accumulated since 
it became waste. 
Tennyson’s northern farmer speaks of the reclama- 
tion of Thornaby Waste, and we hear of his “stubbing 
up ” the furze just as King Alfred recommended. In our 
own times there are not wanting traces of this original 
sort of agriculture. 
In Clare Island and Inishturk in Ireland, each farmer 
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