SOILS AND AGRICULTURE OF NORFOLK. 
359 
The manorial lords tried to insist on the tenants paying 
their rent with work, while the occupiers were equally 
determined to compound for their forced labour with a fixed 
rent. Much of England went out of cultivation for lack of 
men to till it and sheep farming took its place, “ so that one 
shepherd was employed where formerly a hundred men had 
worked.” In this way the foundation was laid of the English 
wool trade. The clothmaking business encouraged the growth 
of towns where cloth manufacture was the staple industry. 
Norfolk was for centuries the centre of the trade, and flourish- 
ing towns, now mere villages, gave their names to the various 
sorts of fabric. Worstead for instance, once famous for the 
manufacture of worsteads, is now a small village devoted 
entirely to agriculture. 
Ultimately the tenants carried their point and rents 
were paid in cash, and, as a consequence, much land was 
enclosed or made into compact farms each with its own 
buildings. This, although it entailed great hardship on the 
tenants who were dispossessed of their holdings and sank to 
the position of labourers, was of great advantage to agriculture 
as it allowed particular treatment of separate small fields and 
and led to better farming than had been possible under the 
old system where all the tenants had to perform the same 
kind of work on the same day. It also facilitated the intro- 
duction of different crops. 
About two centuries ago two of the most important 
innovations were made in agricultural practice. Turnips 
were introduced into England as a crop, and clover was 
also grown. The cultivation of roots allowed sheep to be 
run over the light sandy soils, and so prepared them for a 
cereal crop, and it also allowed cattle to be kept in yards all 
the winter, to fatten and produce farmyard manure. Up to 
the introduction of turnips most of the cattle had been 
slaughtered in the autumn and salted down for food. The 
continuous supply of fresh meat throughout the year raised 
