28 
LandmarTfS in British Farming. 
1781), reaping macMnes (Boyce, 1799), mowing machines 
(Sandilands, 1788), winnowing machines (Cooch, 1800), hay- 
makers (Salmon, 1816), scarifiers, chafi-cutters, turnip-slicers, 
food-crushers, and other implements, New crops ' were intro- 
duced, such as swedes (1750), field cabbage (1730), kohl-rabi 
(1750), Timothy grass (1763), prickly comfrey (1790), mangel- 
wurzel (1810). Cattle-shows and ploughing-matches were held 
throughout the country. Farmers’ clubs and provincial societies 
were established. The old Society for the Fncouragement of Arts, 
Manufactures, and Commerce, which had been instituted in 1754, 
and which expended several thousands of pounds in medals and 
premiums for the improvement of tillage, grasslands, imple- 
ments and other agricultural purposes, was supplanted by other 
bodies. The Bath and West of England Society was founded in 
1777, the Highland Society in 1784, the Smithfield Club in 
1793. In the latter year the Board of Agriculture was consti- 
tuted, with Sir John Sinclair as President, and Arthur Young 
as Secretary. Statistical surveys of the farming of the whole 
country were made by Young, Marshall, Sir John Sinclair, and 
twice by the Board of Agriculture. Everywhere great landlords, 
with “ Farmer George ” at their head, took the lead in improve- 
ments, and endeavoured to diffuse the knowledge and adoption 
of the best agricidtural practices. In Mr. Coke of Holkham, 
the new system of large farms, long leases, and large capital, 
found their most active and practical champion. His estate- 
management, farm-buildings, and cottages, were the model of 
other landlords ; his sheep-shearings were meeting-places for 
practical and theoretical agriculturists, farmers of every district 
and breeders of every kind of stock. 
The close of the war terminated this period of progress and 
prosperity. It was succeeded by twenty years of almost unex- 
ampled suffering. Land had sold for exorbitant sums ; extrava- 
gant standards of living, excessive rentals, undue e.xpenditure 
on buildings, had been the result of inflated prices. Invaluable 
pasture, which had been ploughed up in years when wheat rose 
to 115s. the quarter, was ruined. Violent fluctuations in the 
purchasing power of money accentuated the distress, which was 
aggravated by agrarian discontent. Widespread ruin among 
both landlords and tenants was the result. It was now that the 
substantial yeoman disappeared.^ The table of the House of 
' These dates are not necessarily the earliest dates of the introduction of 
these crops ; they are the dates of the earliest mention of their growth that I 
have encountered. 
^ The decline in the number of yeomen contradicted the expectations of 
Arthur Young and his colleagues. The history' of the gradual disappearance 
of this valuable class would form an interesting subject of inquiry. 
