Landmarlis in British Famiing. 
19 
duced, — that the fen districts, which were seventy miles long, in 
places thirty miles broad, and covered 680,000 acres, had once 
been well-drained and fruitful, — that sheep were kept, not for 
mutton, but for wool, — that the agricultural practices of the open- 
field farms had deteriorated, — that the natural fertility of the soil 
was exhausted, — it is probable that the capacity of England to 
produce food for her population was scarcely greater in 1600 than 
it had been in 1310. 
The period of 160 years which intervened between the death 
of Elizabeth and the accession of George III. was, speaking 
generally, a period of theoretical and local improvement. The 
promise of progress was blighted by the civil commotions and 
social distress of the seventeenth century, while the material pros- 
perity of the first half of the eighteenth centuiy deprived agricul- 
turists of their energy and enterprise. But in this transition 
stage stores of agricultural wealth were accumulated, first in 
theory, and then in local practice. The history of both has been 
so admirably told in Lord Cathcart’s recent monograph on Jethro 
Tull,* that it is needless to repeat the details. 
At the opening of the seventeenth century manifold signs 
appeared of coming improvement. Numerous writers were 
studying the art and practice of farming. Enclosures offered 
the opportunity for the introduction of new crops and new 
methods. Better means of communication were provided. 
New materials for agricultural wealth were within reach ; turnips 
were already grown in English gardens ; clover had been urged 
upon English farmers. Increased attention was paid to ma- 
nuring ; the merits of Peruvian guano were explained by G. de 
la Vega at Lisbon in 1602 ; liming and marling, practices which 
had died out since the fourteenth century, were revived. 
Schemes were on foot to drain the fens ; practical advice 
was given upon the reclamation of waste lands. Attention was 
paid to the improvement of agricultural implements. Patents 
were taken out for draining machines (Burrell, 1628), for new 
manures (1633, 1636, 1640), for improved courses of husbandry 
(Chiver, 1637), for ploughs (Hamilton, 1623; Brouncker, 1627; 
Perham, 1634), for mechanical sowing (Ramsey, 1634; Platt, 
1639). Fresh energies were infused into agriculturists. On 
every side brighter prospects seemed dawning for English 
farming. 
But practical progi'ess was once more checked for more 
than a century by the Civil Wars and political changes of the 
seventeenth century. Agriculture languished, if it did not 
* Journal R.A.S.E., Vol. I. (3rd Series), Pt. I., 1891. 
