AGRICULTURE 



Holt gives a curious recipe for preventing cattle browsing on young trees and hedges, namely 

 to lay the hair from a raw hide with all the impurities adhering in small quantities near the trees or 

 hedges, which will effectually keep the cattle off. 



The general size of farms at the end of the eighteenth century was from 20 to 50 acres, 

 though here and there were some of from 200 to 600 acres, and it was a distinguishing feature of 

 Lancashire farms that their homesteads were very large. 



The yeomanry had greatly diminished of late, the great wealth which had in many cases been 

 so rapidly acquired by some of their neighbours having tempted them to venture their property in 

 trade, and they were to still further diminish all over England during the Napoleonic War as the 

 high prices caused many of them to sell their land, or over-mortgage it so that they were ruined 

 when the reaction came with the peace. 



Very few of the yeomanry or tenant farmers brought up their children to farming, the attrac- 

 tion of a manufacturing career was too strong, yet most of the farmers in the county had sprung 

 from the labouring class, and been enabled to take farms, small at first, by their hard-won savings. 



Some alarm was felt at the diminution of arable land and its conversion into grass, among the 

 chief causes of which were the ' enormous ' wages paid in the manufactories, the increase of the 

 poor rates, the transfer of capital from farming to trade, the absurd rotation of crops in the county, 

 and the exaction of tithes in kind. 



The price of labour varied greatly, in proportion to its distance from manufacturing towns, 

 a striking commentary on the means of communication ; for instance, at Chorley a common 

 labourer got 31. a day and ale, at Euxton 2s. or 2s. dd., at Eccleston \s. dd. or 2s., at Mawdesley 

 only li. 2d. to IS. 4(^., even in harvest time. 



The following is a comparison between wages in 1761 and thirty years later, during which 

 the effect of the great industrial revolution was fully felt : — 



Head man-servant per annum . 



Maid-servant 



Masons and carpenters per day 



Labourers . . . . 



Mowing, per acre . 



Thatching, per day 



Threshing an acre of oats 



The use of oxen for draught work was becoming rare, horses being universally preferred. 



A new implement called the ' miner ' had been lately introduced, which was a ploughshare 



fixed in a strong beam, without mould boards, drawn by four or more horses, to follow in the furrow 



just cut. This, without turning up the substratum, loosened it from 8 to 12 in. deeper than the 



. plough had done. The threshing machine had just been introduced into Lancashire, and was an 



' object of curiosity. 



' The practice of keeping cows in the large towns was prevalent as in England generally, and 



■ no idea of the insanitary nature of it was entertained ; not long before the night soil of Liverpool 

 was thrown into the Mersey. 



Marling the land is described ' as the foundation of all improvements in the agriculture of this 

 county,' and the farms of Lancashire and Cheshire are held up as affording thereby a useful lesson 

 to the rest of the kingdom, though marling was zealously practised in other parts of England. 



The general practice was to begin marling about May or June, continuing as opportunity 

 served throughout the summer ; the enormous dressing of 300 cart-loads being sometimes given to 

 the acre,'" so that grass fields occasionally looked like fresh-ploughed fallows. 



On the arable lands it was the custom to expose the marl to one summer's sun and one winter's 

 frost before ploughing it in, after being well harrowed ; and the cost of this tremendous dressing 

 was about £S per acre. 



' Sea slutch ' from the Ribble and Wyre was used on adjacent lands as a substitute for marl, 

 and was frequently used as a substratum for fruit trees, a load being put to each tree, the effects of 

 which are described as wonderful. 



For grass-land, however, lime had nearly superseded marl as manure, the customary quantity 

 then being 200 bushels to a statute acre applied in May and June. 



Lancashire, as became the first county in which the potato was grown, boasted in 1794 a 

 superior cultivation in that important article, the average crops being 200 to 300 bushels (of 90 lb. 



" Eden, State of the Poor, li, 294 ; between the same dates the price of a good cart-horse had risen from 

 j^io to jf2 5 and of a set of horseshoes from \s. to \s. id. 



*" In Norfolk at this time 25 loads per acre was the average. 



2 42s 54 



