A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Orchards, except in sheltered pl.iccs, were very scarce, but a good deal of timber planting was 

 going on, old timber being limited in quantity. Moss bogs and marshes were of great extent, 

 though a great deal of draining, paring, burning, and liming had been carried on, notably by the 

 celebrated Roscoe, who in 1820 had begun to improve Trafford moss, and was encouraged by his 

 success to proceed with Chatmoss. 



The following is his own account of his methods, which it is interesting to compare with those 



of Young :—'" 



A main road was carried from east to west through the whole extent of my portion of the moss, 

 about three miles long and thirty-six feet wide. It is bounded on each side by a main drain, seven 

 feet wide and six feet deep, from which the water is conveyed by a considerable fall to the river. 



From these two main drains, other drains diverge at fifty yards distance from each other, and 

 extend from each side of the road to the utmost limits of the moss. 



These field drains are four feet wide at the top, one foot at the bottom, and four and a-half feet 

 deep, and are kept carefully open. 



The cultivation of the moss then proceeded in the following manner : — 



After setting fire to the heath and herbage on the moss, and burning it down as far as practicable, 

 I plough a thin sod or furrow, with a very sharp horse-plough, which I burn in small heaps and dissi- 

 pate. The moss being thus brought to a tolerable dry and level surface, I then plough a regular 

 furrow six inches deep, and as soon as possible after it is turned up, I set upon it the necessary quantity 

 of marl, not less than 200 cubic yards to the acre. As the marl begins to crumble and fall with the 

 sun and frost it is spread over the land, after which I put in a crop as early as possible, adding for the 

 first crop a quantity of manure, about twenty tons per acre. Moss land thus treated may not only be 

 advantageously cropped the first year with green crops, but with any kind of grain, and as wheat has 

 of late paid better than any other I have hitherto chiefly relied on it. 



The cost of the several ploughings, with the burning, sowing, and harrowing, and of the marl 

 and manure, but exclusive of the seed and the previous drainage, was £ii 5 J. an acre, and in 1812 

 on one piece of land thus improved Roscoe grew twenty bushels of wheat per acre, then worth a 

 guinea a bushel, but the crops in the moss were not generally as good as this. 



The cattle at the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were chiefly the longhocned 

 breed, though a good many shorthorns were used for the dairy. The larger ' grass farms near the 

 popular towns furnish milk, the smaller ones butter, and the remote farms cheese, which resembles 

 that of Cheshire, and is made chiefly from the longhorned or native breed.' 



Sheep were not very common, but horses were generally bred of the ' strong team kind,' also 

 stout compact saddle horses, and those of middling size and bone for the stage and mail coaches. 

 Roads were still bad in most places owing to want of good materials and the moist climate. An 

 ingenious road-maker near Warrington, tired of the convex form, had adopted that of one inclined 

 plane, but it was found though the water ran off well, that heavy laden waggons were liable 

 to be overturned, a fact that might have been perceived before tlie roads were made. 



In the middle of the nineteenth century agriculture in South Lancashire was very backward 

 and neglected,'* manufactures seem to have pushed it on one side. Though possessed of excellent 

 markets close at hand, with an inexhaustible supply of manure from towns and villages, many causes 

 are stated to have been against good farming, excessive rainfall,'' the nature of the soil in many 

 parts, i.e. a strong clay expensive to improve and cultivate, the number of small farmers who, though 

 industrious, had little intelligence or capital, life leases and yearly agreements affording little perma- 

 nent interest in the land, and the fact that the landlords were too content with the mineral wealth 

 under the surface to pay much attention to the crops on it.'" Moved by the bad times, shared 

 by Lancashire with the rest of England, that they were then undergoing, landowners were 

 reducing rents, removing useless hedgerows hitherto held sacred, executing drainage, improving farm 

 buildings, and what sounds strange in the twentieth century, giving leave for the breaking up of 

 grass-land. 



On Lord Derby's and Lord Sefton's estates especially, many valuable improvements were being 

 carried out ; on the former a regular drainage corps of from seventy to a hundred men was con- 

 stantly employed. 



According to Caird, the farming of the undrained lands, then comprising the greater part of 

 South Lancashire, had improved little since the time of Arthur Young. Land intended for summer 



" Loudon, Enc. of Agric. (ed. 1825), 678. 



^ The writer of a prize essay on Lancashire Agriculture in Roy. Agric. Soc. Engl. Joum. 1849 says 'we 

 are sadly behind the rest of the world in agricultural attainments,' but ' the northern part is decidedly better 

 than the southern.' 



" The average rainfall in Lancashire is double that of Middlesex. 



*■ In 1851 wheat had dropped to 38/. 6d. per quarter, in 1847 it was 69/. ^d. 



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