In describing the agriculture of the time the first point of importance is the proportion of cultivated land to waste. Gregory King, who rather overestimated the total acreage of England and Wales, put the arable land at 11,000,000 acres, pasture and meadow at 10,000,000, houses, gardens, orchards, etc., at 1,000,000, being a total of 22,000,000 acres of cultivated land, or nearly three-fifths of the whole country. A land-agent in 1727 believed one-half of the country to be waste. Arthur Young, writing fifty years later, puts the cultivated area at a much higher figure. Estimating the total acreage of England alone at 54,000,000 acres, he considered that 52,000,000 of these were in arable and pasture, in equal proportions.
One or other of the two first-mentioned estimates is certainly nearer the truth than the last. The exact proportion is, however, impossible to determine.
There is no respect in which the agricultural England of today differs more from that of the period which we are considering, than in the greatly reduced amount of common land, The enclosure of commons had been going on for centuries before 1760, but with nothing like the rapidity with which it has been going on since, it is known that 554,974 acres were enclosed between 1710 and 1760, while nearly 7,000,000 were enclosed between 1760 and 1845.4 At the beginning of the latter period a large proportion of this land, since enclosed, was under the primitive tillage of the common-fields. Throughout considerable districts the agrarian system of the middle ages still existed in full force. Some parishes had no common or waste lands belonging to them, but where common lands were cultivated, one and the same plan was generally pursued. The arable land of each village was divided into three great stripes subdivided by 'baulks' three yards wide. Every farmer would own at least one piece of land in each field, and all were bound to follow the customary tillage. One strip was left fallow every year; on the other two were grown wheat and barley; sometimes oats, pease, or tares were substituted for the latter. The meadows were also held in common. Up to hay harvest, indeed, every man had his own plot, but, while in the arable land the plots rarely changed hands, in the meadows the different shares were apportioned by lot every year, After hay-harvest the fences in the meadow land were thrown down, and all householders had common rights of grazing on it. Similarly the stubbles were grazed, but here the right was rarely open to all. Every farmer had the right of pasture on the waste.
Though these common fields contained the best soil in the kingdom, they exhibited the most wretched cultivation. 'Never,' says Arthur Young, 'were more miserable crops seen than all the spring ones in the common fields; absolutely beneath contempt. The causes of this deficient tillage were three in number: (1) The same course of crops was necessary. No proper rotation was feasible; the only possible alternation being to vary the proportions of different white-straw crops. - There were no turnips or artificial grasses, and consequently no sheep-farming on a large scale. Such sheep as there were were miserably small; the whole carcase weighed only 28 lbs., and the fleeces 3 1/2 lbs. each, as against 9 lbs. on sheep in enclosed fields. (2) Much time was lost by labourers and cattle 'in travelling to many dispersed pieces of land from one end of a parish to another.' (3) Perpetual quarrels arose about rights of pasture in the meadows and stubbles, and respecting boundaries; in some fields there were no 'baulks' to divide the plots, and men would plough by night to steal a furrow from their neighbours.
For these reasons the connections between the practice of enclosing and improved agriculture was very close. The early enclosures, made under the Statutes of Merton (1235), and Westminster (1285), were taken by the lords of the manor from the waste. But in these uses the lord had first to prove that sufficient pasturage had been left for the commoners; and if rights of common existed independent of the possession of land, no enclosure was permitted. These early enclosures went on steadily, but the enclosures which first attract notice towards the end of the fifteenth century were of a different kind. They were often made on cultivated land, and, if Nasse is correct, they took the form not only of permanent conversions from arable into pasture, but of temporary conversions of arable into pasture, followed by reconversion from pasture into arable. The result was a great increase of produce. The lord having separated his plots from those of his neighbours, and having consolidated them, could pursue any system of tillage which seemed good to him. The alternate and convertible husbandry, mentioned above, was introduced; the manure of the cattle enriched the arable land, and 'the grass crops on the land ploughed up and manured were much stronger and of a better quality than those on the constant pasture.' Under the old system the manure was spread on the ground pasture, while in the enclosures it was used for the benefit of land broken up for tillage. The great enclosures of the sixteenth century took place in Suffolk, Essex, Kent, and Northamptonshire, which were in consequence the most wealthy counties. They were frequent also in Oxford, Berks, Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, Bucks, and Leicestershire, and with similar results. In Arthur Young's time Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent were the best cultivated parts of England.
Taking a general view of the state of agriculture in 1760, we find that improvements were confined to a few parts of the country. The first enclosure Bill (1710) was to legalise the enclosure of a parish in Hampshire. I have looked through twelve of these Bills of the reign of George I, and I find that they applied to parishes in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, Wilts, Warwickshire, and Norfolk. But though enclosures were thus widely distributed, certain counties continued to bear a much higher reputation than others, and in some improvements were confined to one or two parishes, and not spread over a wide district. The best cultivated counties were those which had long been enclosed. Kent, which was spoken of by William Stafford in 1581 as a county where much of the land was enclosed, is described by Arthur Young as having 'long been reckoned the best cultivated in England.'... 'It must astonish strangers,' he says, 'to East Kent and Thanet, to find such numbers of common farmers that have more drilled crops than brast ones, and to see them so familiar with drill-ploughs and horse-hoes. The drill culture carried on in so complete a manner is the great peculiarity of this country.... Hops are extremely well cultivated.' Is in, another passage he says that Kent and Hertfordshire 'have the reputation of a very accurate cultivation.' The Marquis of Rockingham brought a Hertfordshire farmer to teach his tenants in the West Riding to hoe turnips. The husbandry both of that district and of the East Riding was very backward. The courses of crops, and the general management of the arable land were very faulty; very few of the farmers hoed turnips, and those who did executed the work in so slovenly a way that neither the crop nor the land was the least the better for it; beans were never hoed at all. The husbandry of Northumberland, on the other hand, was much superior to that of Durham and Yorkshire. Turnips were hoed, manure was better managed, and potatoes were cultivated on a large scale. Essex, held up by Tusser in the reign of Elizabeth as an example of the advantages of enclosures, and described by Young in 1807 as having 'for ages been an enclosed country,' is mentioned as early as 1694 as a county where 'some have their fallow after turnips, which feed their sheep in winter,' - the first mention of turnips as a field crop.
But the greatest progress in the first half of the eighteenth century seems to have taken place in Norfolk. Every one has heard of Townshend growing turnips at Raynham, after his quarrel with Walpole; and Young, writing in 1812, after speaking of the period 1700-1760 as one of stagnation, owing to low prices ('it is absolutely vain to expect improvements in agriculture unless prices are more disposed to rise than to remain long without variations that give encouragement to the farmer'), admits that the improvements made in Norfolk during that time were an exception, in his Eastern Tour (1770), he had spoken of the husbandry 'which has rendered the name of this county so famous in the rming world". and given seven reasons for the improvements. These were: (1) Enclosing without assistance of Parliament. Parliamentary enclosure 'through the knavery of commissioners and attorneys,' was very expensive. 'Undoubtedly many of the finest loams on the richest marls would at this day have been sheep-walks had there been any right o* commonage on them.' (2) Marling, for there was plenty of marl under the sand everywhere; (3) An excellent rotation of crops-the famous Norfolk four years' course of turnips, barley, clover (or clover and rye-grass), and wheat; (4) The culture of turnips well hand-hoed; (5) The culture of clover and rye-grass; (6) The granting of long leases; (7) The division of the county chiefly into large farms. 'Great farms,' he says, 'have been the soul of the Norfolk culture, though in the eastern part of the county there were little occupiers of *100 a year.
Throughout the whole of the South of England, however, there had been a certain amount of progress. Hoeing turnips, according to Young, was common in many parts of the south of the kingdom, although the extensive use of turnips - i.e. all their uses for fattening cattle as well as feeding lean sheep - 'is known but little of, except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.' Clover husbandry, on the other hand, was 'universal from the North of England to the further end of Glamorganshire.' Clover, the 'great clover,' had been introduced into England by Sir Richard Weston about 1645, as had probably been turnips also. Potatoes at the beginning of the century were only garden crops. Hemp and flax were frequently grown, as were also hops, which had been introduced in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
If we turn from the cultivation of the soil to the management and breeding of live stock, we shall find that no great progress had been made in this branch during the years 1700-1760. Davenant in 1700 estimated the net carcase of black cattle at 370 lb., and of a sheep at 28 lb. A century later Eden calculated that 'bullocks now killed in London weigh, at an average, 800 lb., sheep 80 lb., and lambs about 50 lb. each". and Young in 1786 put the weight of bullocks and sheep at 840 lb. and 100 lb. respectively. But this improvement seems to have come about after 1760. It was not until 1760-85 that Bakewell perfected the new breed of sheep - the Leicesters - and improved the breed of long-horned cattle, and that the brothers Culley obtained the short-horn, or Durham cattle, from the breed in the valley of the Tees. Some improvements in the breed of sheep, however, had already been made. 'The wool of Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Rutland, with some parts of Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk has been accounted the longest and finest combing wool. But of late years' (this was written in 1739) 'there have been improvements made in the breed of sheep by changing or rams and sowing of turnips and grass seeds, and now there is some large fine combing wool to be found in most counties in England, which is fine, long, and soft, fit to make all sorts of fine stuff and hose of.' Still improvements in feeding sheep were by no means universally adopted for half a century later. Agricultural implements, too, were still very primitive, wooden ploughs being commonly in use, while the small, narrow-wheeled waggon of the North held 40 or 50 bushels with difficulty.
Arthur Young constantly attributes much of the bad agriculture to the low rentals prevalent. 'Of so little encouragement to them,' he writes of the farmers of Cleveland, 'is the lowness of their rents, that many large tracts of land that yielded good crops of corn within thirty years are now overrun with whins, brakes, and other trumpery.... If I be demanded how such ill courses are to be stopped, I answer, Raise their rents. First with moderation, and if that does not bring forth industry, double them.' At the same time Young strongly advocated long leases. But it must be remembered that besides tenant farmers there were still a large number of freeholders and still more copyholders either for life or by inheritance.
On the whole, though the evidence on some points is somewhat contradictory, the progress of agriculture between 1700 and 1760 may be said to have been slow. Writing in 1770 Arthur Young ascribes to the last ten years 'more experiments, more discoveries, and more general good sense displayed in the walk of agriculture than in an hundred preceding ones.' Though drill-husbandry was practised by Jethro Tull, 'a gentleman of Berkshire,' as early as 1701, and his was published in 1731, 'he seems to have had few followers in England for more than thirty years,' and Young in 1770 speaks of 'the new husbandry' as having sunk with Tull, and 'not again put in motion till within a few years.' On the other hand, we have as early as 1687 Petty's notice of 'the draining of fens, watering of dry grounds, and improving of forests and commons.' Macpherson in the year 1729 speaks of the great sums lately expended in the enclosing and improving of lands; and Laurence in 1727 asserts that 'it is an undoubted truth that the Art of Husbandry is of late years greatly improved, and accordingly many estates have already admitted their utmost improvement, but,' he adds, 'much the greater number still remains of such as are so far from being brought to that perfection that they have felt few or none of the effects of modern arts and experiments.'
Still, in spite of the ignorance and stupidity of the farmers and their use of wretched implements, the average produce of wheat was large. In 1770 it was twenty-five bushels to the acre, when in France it was only eighteen. At the beginning of the century some of our colonies imported wheat from the mother country. The average export of grain from 1697 to 1765 was nearly 500,000 quarters, while the imports came to a very small figure. The exports were sent to Russia, Holland, and America.
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