East Riding of Yorkshire. 
97 
The turnip crop may be said to be a new tiling to the wolds, not of 
more than twenty years' standing, thongh singularly adapted to the soil, 
and notwithstanding it has in Norfolk been an established object of 
culture more than a century. At present this crop is in full estimation, 
being considered as the most solid basis of wold husbandry." 
About twenty-four years after Mr. Marshall's treatise, Mr. 
Strickland's 'Survey' was published. In this work all the 
economies and practices of husbandry are treated of with the 
greatest care and minuteness. It would be quite impossible 
within the limits of this Report, nor would it be consistent with its 
object, to follow Mr. Strickland through all the branches of bis 
subject ; it will be sufficient if we extract a few such passages as 
show the modes of cultivation which then prevailed in the district. 
It must be borne in mind that at the time of this ' Survey ' war- 
prices had reached their acme. Wheat for the year 1812 
averaged 122s. per quarter; barley, 66s.; oats, 44s. ; beans, 72s. ; 
and beef and mutton had reached 8^J. per lb. During the 
twenty-four preceding years these and other causes had operated 
as most powerful incentives to that agricultural enterprise of 
which Mr. Marshall had seen the dawn. We should have been 
prepared then to find that the cultivation of the soil had y^yo- 
ceeded pari passu : whether this was the case let Mr. Strickland's 
pages tell. War-prices had done their utmost; but what Liebig 
denominates the day of rational culture had not yet arrived. 
On the subject of arable land Mr. Strickland says, p. 105 — 
" On the wolds, and country peculiarly adapted to sheep, but from 
various circumstances unfavourable to corn, particularly wheat, a 
stranger would be surprised to see at this time at least two-thirds of the 
land under the plough. This district, till of late years, had continued 
for ages in the open-field state; and a few townships still remain so. 
They were usually divided pretty equally into a tillage field, a common 
pasture, a sheep-walk (which never came under the plough), and an out- 
field, from which a crop of oats was taken every third, fourth, or fifth 
year, and which was left without either manure or grass-seeds, to be 
depastured with sheep till it came again into the course to be ploughed 
up About two-thirds of the country was given up to pasturage 
and one-third to grain, producing at the same time winter provision for 
their stock. Unfortunately those beautiful sheep-walks and pastures, 
which the eatage of so many ages had rendered verdant and fertile 
beyond any to be met with on the other downs or heaths of the king- 
dom, held out an irresistible temptation to modern avarice, and under 
the plea of improvement they have been ploughed out. 
" The average proportion of the tillage land on the wolds at present 
may be taken at full two-thirds. 
" In Holderness something more than one-third is under the plough ; 
towards the south-eastern extremity considerably more, probably 
amounting to one-half. 
VOL. IX. H 
