152 



State of Agriculture in Northumberland, 



meanest description, and the accommodation supplied to their 

 cattle was scanty and inconvenient. The country rem.ained gene- 

 rally uninclosed ; and the part on which they bestowed cultiva- 

 tion, such as it was, consisted of small crofts adjoining their dwel- 

 lings. The plough then in use is described as a clumsy and 

 inefficient instrument ; and the harrow was constructed without 

 joints and without iron, of branches of the mountain-birch, fixed 

 together with wooden pegs, with tines of the tough broom, ^' 

 which it was the business of the husbandman to sharpen or renew 

 by help of his clasp-knife, while his unshod cattle, yoked by 

 hempen traces, were turned off to regale themselves upon the 

 neighbouring waste. The rent then paid consisted of a contribu- 

 tion in kind from the produce of the land and in personal service. 

 Such was the state of things in the border counties at a period 

 when the fields of ^'^ merry England" were already divided by 

 luxuriant hedge-rows, and yielded their annual harvests to the cul- 

 tivator's toil. But this apparently unpromising state of things 

 contained within it the seeds of a rapid improvement, and the 

 growth of a system of agriculture, approaching probably as near 

 to perfection as any that this country at present exhibits. Habits 

 of domestic peace and industry gradually succeeded those of broils 

 and discord. The open country, hitherto undrained of its fertility, 

 offered a tempting field for the exercise of skill, industry, and en- 

 terprise. But few inclosures of inconvenient size, and fences of 

 wasteful dim^ensions, stood in the way of laying out and dividing- 

 farms into fields of approved size and convenient arrangement ; 

 and v/hat is of still greater importance, perhaps, few of those 

 customs and prejudices were to be overcome and uprooted which 

 too frequently impede the introduction of improvements among 

 the occupiers of anciently cultivated districts. Cultivation conti- 

 nued gradually to extend itself: an improvement took place in 



the vestiges of towns and camps that seemed never to have been trod upon 

 by any human creature than myself since the Romans abandoned them ; 

 the traces of streets and the foundations of the buildings being still 

 visible, only grown over with grass." And it is certain that it was not till 

 after the accession of George III., in 1760, that the King's writ might be 

 said to run throughout the county. 



* The now highly-cultivated Vale of the Till was in former days much 

 covered by broom — the classic " Planta Genista" which gave the name to 

 the powerful dynasty of the Plantagenets. "In the beginning of the ICth 

 century a body of Scots, who had concealed themselves in the tall broom in 

 Milfield Plain, were attacked and defeated by Sir Wm. Bulmer, of Brance- 

 peth Castle, who commanded the forces of the bishopric of Durham. 500 

 or 600 of the Scots were killed, and 400 taken prisoners.'' — (History of 

 Northumberland.) And a story is told of a farmer in Milfield, eighty years 

 ago, who lost a mare for some weeks, which at length emerged from the 

 forest of broom followed by a foal. Tines of broom and other kinds of wood 

 are used in some parts of Holland at this day. 



