34 
ENGLISH FARMING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
[Nature and Art, July 1, 1866‘. 
Nothing, perhaps, marks more strikingly the 
growth of our agricultural knowledge than the 
contrast between the judge’s book, and such a 
work as Mr. Morton’s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture. 
The former* condenses all that could then be said on 
the subj ect within the compass of some hundred pages 
of large black-letter type. The latter is a ponder- 
ous work in four octavo volumes, with double 
columns of close, though clear, print. 
It must not, however, be supposed that the 
example of an eminent judge was required to make 
agriculture popular amongst the higher classes in 
England. Though the country gentleman, in the 
modern acceptation of the term, is a creature of 
very recent growth, yet a connection with the 
land, and an interest in its cultivation, has been 
held in honour from early times. Three or four 
centuries, ago it was not considered at all derog- 
atory to his rank, for the son of a wealthy noble- 
man to seek a practical acquaintance with the 
current system of agriculture by a sort of 
apprenticeship to the business. We read, for 
instance, that Thomas, 5th Lord Berkeley, was 
“ educated at Tliornbury in a farmer’s life, being a 
perfect Cotswold shepherd, living a kind of grazier’s 
life, having his flocks of sheep somering in one 
place, and wintering in another; and he observed 
the fields and pastures to be sound, and could 
bargaine best cheap ; and he kept an account of 
all his receipts, payments, profits, and losses, con- 
cerning his flocks: sold his wool for 12s. 8d. the 
todd ; and kept also accounts of all his household 
expenses.” + 
It would not be difficult to find a parallel to his 
lordship in our own times. An ex-colonel of the 
Guards, as eminent for his musical talents as for 
his skill in farming, is fond of narrating his own 
experience as a seller of stock. Disguised in a smock, 
and shod with his clumsiest shooting-boots, he 
drove his sheep to a certain market in Hampshire, 
and took his seat on a hurdle, smoking the strongest 
“ cavendish,” and waiting for business. His price 
was too high for indiscriminate buyers; but, at the 
close of the day, a rough-looking customer made a 
bid which, after a due amount of wrangling, was 
accepted. On adjourning to the public-house to 
bind the bargain with the customary “ drain,” and 
to exchange addresses, each wrote his own name, 
and the astonishment that followed was mutual ; 
but the seller had the satisfaction of learning that 
his sheep had pleased the critical eye of General 
Wemyss, and had been bought by him for the 
Prince Consort. Truly a strange field and a 
strange encounter between two gallant officers, 
who had both exchanged their swords for shep- 
herd’s crooks. 
In estimating the causes of the slow progress 
which agriculture had made in England three 
centuries ago, it would be unfair to leave out of 
>)s We refer to tlie edition of 1598 “corrected, amended, 
and reduced into a more pleasing forme of English than 
before.” The original work was published in 1523, and is 
much shorter and more quaint than the later editions. 
f Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeley Family, p. 177. 
account the almost entire absence of good roads. 
Easy communication with a good market-town, 
and facility of transport for produce, are advan- 
tages now so common amongst us as to be scarcely 
I’ecognized as such. But think of the loss of time, 
money, and capital (not to mention that of temper 
also), which must have been the result of the 
state of things before the days of General Wade. 
Even two centuries ago it took nineteen days for 
the news of Charles the First’s death to reach 
Taunton. This was in part due to the loyal un- 
willingness of the West Country folk to receive 
and transmit such intelligence ; yet it is an in- 
structive fact that there was a time which allowed 
the possibility of such tardy travelling. It was 
not until the year 1663 that the first act of Parlia- 
ment was passed authorizing the levy of tolls for 
the repair of roads. 
Neglected nature had also a powerful ally, and 
the farmers an unreasonable opponent, in the 
vexatious legislation of James I. That meddle- 
some monarch enacted that carts and -waggons with 
four wheels so galled the highways and bridges as 
to be indictable as common nuisances, and the 
royal proclamation was only the echo of local Acts 
of Iona - standing. With such difficulties in the 
way, the farmer had no choice but to seek the 
nearest market, and confine himself wholly to it. 
And even there fresh obstacles awaited him. He 
was surrounded by a complicated and troublesome 
system of enactments, and was liable to have his 
j ust expectations of profit disappointed by the 
issue of a sudden mandate, fixing the price of corn 
at what Mr. Mayor might consider the fair value. 
Of one other drawback with which farmers had 
to contend, we think too much has been made. It 
is not unusual to hear it said that the seasons in 
England are different from what they used to be ; 
that the winters, especially, are not so rigorous 
as formerly. This is probably, in some measure, 
true; and is partly the result of the diminution 
that has taken place in the extent of forest and 
undrained land. Even in our own days the climate 
of Canada has undergone a perceptible change 
from similar causes. But we, ourselves, are in- 
clined to think that, after all, the variation in 
temperature has not been very great ; and that the 
truth is, that science has rendered farmers less depen- 
dent upon weather than in former times, while free 
trade in corn and cattle has rendered us less 
dependent on the farmers. The last two bad 
seasons, following each other in succession, would 
have sufficed to ruin a vast number of farmers of 
the old school ; but we have not heard that agri- 
culturalists, as a class, are louder than usual in 
their complaints. And it is certainly the fact, that 
the public generally have suffered less from the 
effects of last summer’s drought and last winter’s 
rigour than had been reasonably expected. 
The foregoing remarks may serve as a sort of 
apology for the backward condition of agriculture 
in England three centuries ago. Let us add that 
the exceptions to that general backwardness are 
not found in the quarters where we should have 
