A Short History of English Agriculture Part 13

The legislation against laying down tillage to gra.s.s was continued until the end of the sixteenth century. The statute 39 Eliz., c. 1, repealed 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, and all other Acts against pulling down houses, and provided that a house of husbandry should be a house that hath or hath had 20 acres of arable land. All such houses which had been destroyed during the last seven years were to be rebuilt, and if destroyed more than seven years only one-half was to be rebuilt; but to each of them at least 40 acres of land were to be attached.

The next statute, 39 Eliz., c. 2, sets forth once more the advantages of tillage, viz. the increase and multiplying of people for service in the wars, and in time of peace the employment of a greater number of people, the keeping of people from poverty, the dispersal of the wealth of the kingdom in many hands, and 'the standing of this realm upon itself without depending upon foreign countries'[270]; and therefore enacts that lands converted from tillage to pasture shall be restored to tillage within three years, and lands then in tillage should be so continued; but this was only to extend to twenty-three counties, and omitted most of those in the south-west. At the beginning of the seventeenth century a reaction set in; the price of corn had risen immensely and continued to do so, the price of wool remained stationary, and tillage was as profitable as gra.s.s. In 1620 c.o.ke speaks of the man who only kept a shepherd and a dog as one who never prospered. In 1624 several of the tillage laws were repealed.[271]

As an example of the unenclosed fields, at the end of the sixteenth century, we may take the common fields at Daventry, which were three in number, containing respectively 368, 383, and 524 acres, divided into furlongs, a term which had now a very wide signification, each of which was subdivided into lands nearly always half an acre in extent, several of these lands when adjoining being often held now by the same owner. One furlong may be taken as an example. It was 37 acres 1 rood in extent, and contained ninety-six lands, owned by seventeen people.

The meadows were divided still more minutely, some of the smaller portions being only a quarter of an acre each. The largest meadow contained 50 acres, divided among fifty-three people. In the manor, besides the arable and meadow, there were 300 acres of common pasture, a park, and a small wood. There were forty-one freeholders and many leasehold tenants, the average freehold being 34 acres, the average leasehold only half an acre, small holdings being the usual feature of the unenclosed towns.h.i.+p.

In the seventeenth century the price of wool ceased to operate as a cause of enclosure, but in many parts the change to pasture continued, owing to the rise in price of cattle and of wages. The same reason, too, for laying down land to gra.s.s that had been so powerful in the preceding centuries still existed, the common arable fields needed rest from continual cropping and poor manuring, while good crops of corn could be grown from the virgin soil of the newly enclosed waste.

The preamble of the Durham decrees clearly states this: 'the land is wasted and worn with continual ploweing, and thereby made bare, barren, and very unfruitful.'[272] We may, therefore, take c.o.ke's words as inapplicable to many districts. In the seventeenth century there were several methods of enclosing. Sometimes the lord of the manor enclosed and left the land of the tenants still in common; or a tenant enclosed piece by piece; or enclosures were made by Act of Parliament, the earliest of which for common fields was pa.s.sed in the time of James I, a method at this period very seldom used; or there was an agreement between lord and tenants often authorized by the Courts of Chancery or Exchequer.

Besides enclosure, another process was going on, the consolidation of farms by the amalgamation of small holdings into larger ones.

Farmhouses, as we see them to-day, began to appear on the holdings thus consolidated, instead of being grouped together in villages. A writer in 1604 says, 'we may see many of their houses built alone like raven's nests, no birds building neere them' so unwonted was the sight of isolated dwellings in most places at the time.

However, in 1630 Charles I went back to the policy of his forefathers and issued letters to certain of the Midland counties ordering all enclosures of the last two years to be removed, and Commissions were issued to inquire into the matter in 1632, 1635, and 1636,[273] the chief evil feared from enclosures being depopulation, and enclosers were prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber.

The a.s.sertion that enclosures ceased during the seventeenth century has been proved inaccurate by modern research, and there is no doubt that they went on continuously. In 1607, in the Midlands, the enclosing of land produced serious armed resistance, probably because the Midland counties were then the great corn-growing district of England, and the change to pasture and the consolidation of farms displaced a larger population there than elsewhere. Between 1628 and 1630 enclosures in Leicesters.h.i.+re, for instance, were very numerous, no less than 10,000 acres being enclosed in that time, most of which was converted to pasture. The attempt of the Government to check the movement, initiated by Charles I, seems to have had considerable effect, but died away with the Civil War, and though other attempts were made under the Commonwealth they came to nothing, and from this time enclosures went on unchecked by the Government,[274] and were soon to have its active support. Yet there was a vast amount still in common field: the whole of the cultivated land of England in 1685 was stated by King and Davenant to amount to not much more than half the total area, and of this cultivated portion three-fifths was still farmed on the old common-field system. Northamptons.h.i.+re, Leicesters.h.i.+re, Rutland, Huntingdons.h.i.+re, and Bedfords.h.i.+re were comparatively unenclosed.[275] From the books and maps of the day 'it is clear that many routes which now pa.s.s through an endless succession of orchards, corn-fields, hay-fields, and bean-fields then ran through nothing but heath, swamp, and warren. In the drawings of an English landscape made in that age for the Grand Duke Cosmo scarce a hedgerow is to be seen.... At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the capital, was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circ.u.mference which contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields.'[276]

The enclosure of these areas was to be mainly the work of the latter half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries.

The amount of enclosure in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first half of the seventeenth centuries was, according to the latest research, much, and perhaps very naturally, exaggerated by contemporaries. Between 1455-1607 the enclosures in twenty-four counties are said to have amounted to some 500,000 acres, or 2.76 of their total area,[277] but the evidence for this is by no means conclusive. However, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr.

Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not accompanied by very much direct eviction of freeholders or bona fide copyholders of inheritance; yet the small holder suffered in many ways, e.g. by the lord disproving the hereditary character of the copyhold, or by changing copyholds of inheritance into copyholds for lives or leases for lives or years. He and his successors could then refuse to renew at the termination of lives or years except on payment of a practically prohibitory fine. In short, though there was not much violation of legal right there was much injustice, and enclosure, though its effects were exaggerated at this period, certainly tended to displace the small landholder. It does not appear, however, that the moderate-sized proprietors were seriously affected. Many of the larger freeholders and copyholders on manors enclosed on their own account, and perhaps increased at the expense of the very large and the very small. Indeed, the decrease of small landowners was chiefly due to political and social causes. The old self-sufficing, agricultural economy of England, which we have seen beginning to break up in the fourteenth century, was becoming thoroughly disintegrated.

The capitalist cla.s.s was increasing; the successful merchant and lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffords.h.i.+re in 1669, says that in the previous sixty years half the lands had changed owners, not so much as of old they were wont to do, by marriage, but by purchase; and he notices how many lawyers and tradesmen have supplanted the gentry.[278]

In fact, there was a much freer disposal of lands from the end of the fifteenth century, when the famous Taltarum's case enabled entailed estates to be barred, until the Restoration, than there has been before or since. For these two hundred years the courts of law and parliament resisted every effort to re-establish the system of entails; the owners of land constantly multiplied, and this tendency must have counteracted the displacement of the small holder by enclosure. Sir Thomas Smith, writing towards the end of the sixteenth century, says that it was the yeomen who bought the lands of 'unthrifty gentlemen;' and Moryson tells us that 'the buyers (excepting lawyers) are for the most part citizens and vulgar men'.[279] It became one of the boasts of England that she had a large number of yeomen farming their own land. During the Civil War, however, it became important to landowners to protect their properties in the interest of children and descendants from forfeiture for treason. The judges lent their aid, and the system of strict family settlements was devised, under which the great bulk of the estates in England are now held. This system favoured the acc.u.mulation of lands in a few hands and the aggregation of great estates, and was largely responsible for the disappearance of the small freeholder.

In reviewing the progress of agriculture in the seventeenth century, the drainage of the fen country of Lincolns.h.i.+re and the adjoining counties must not be forgotten. It had been for centuries the scene of drainage operations on a more or less extended scale, few of which, however, met with success; but in the seventeenth century the growing value of land caused a serious revival of these efforts. Attempts made under Elizabeth and James I had only succeeded in rescuing a certain amount of land for pasture,[280] but in the reign of Charles I the scheme of Cornelius Vermuyden was more successful. His system, however, was defective, and in the reign of Charles II the Bedford Level was in a lamentable state and in danger of reverting to its primitive condition. Many of the works too were destroyed by the 'stiltwalkers', and in 1793 Maxwell states that out of 44,000 acres of fen land in Huntingdons.h.i.+re only 8,000 or 10,000 were productive[281]; and in 1794 Stone tells us that the commons round the Isle of Axholme were chiefly covered with water.[282] Still to Vermuyden and his contemporaries must be a.s.signed the credit of the first comprehensive scheme for rescuing these fertile lands from the waters that covered them.

At the commencement of this important century an old calendar of 1606[283] clearly sets forth the farming work of the year:--

January and February are the best months for ploughing for peas, beans, and oats, and to have peas soon in the year following sow them in the wane of the moon at S. Andrewstide before Christmas; which may be compared to Tusser's advice for February,

'Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season For sowing of fitches of beans and of peason.'

'Clean grounds of all such rubbish as briars, brambles, blackthorns, and shrubbs' (then more often choking the ground than now), which are to be f.a.goted as good fuel for baking and brewing.

'Do not plough in rainy weather, for it impoverisheth the earth.'

March and April. Take up colts from gra.s.s to be broken. Sow beans, peas, and oats. In these months are all grounds where cattle went in the last winter to be furthed (apparently managed) and cleared and the mole-hills scattered, that the fresh spring of gra.s.s may grow better.

All hedges and ditches to be made betwixt 'severals', evidently enclosures as distinguished from common fields. From March 25 to May 1 summer pastures are to be spared, that they may have time to get head before summer cattle be put in. In the meantime such cattle are to be bestowed in meadows till May Day, and after that date such meadows are to be cleansed and spared until the crops of hay be taken off. From now till midsummer sell fat cattle and sheep, and with the money buy lean cattle and sheep. Sow barley.

May and June. Sort all cattle for their summer pasture on May Day, viz. draught oxen by themselves, milch cows by themselves, weaning calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three- and four-year-olds, every sort by themselves, which being divided in pasture fitting for them will make larger and fairer cattle. Separate the horses in the same way. Wash sheep and shear four or five days after, which done the wool is to be well wound and weighed, and safely laid up in some place where there is not too much air or it will lose weight, nor where it is damp or it will increase too much in weight. Cleanse winter corn from thistles and weeds.

July and August. First of all comes hay-making. In August wean lambs, and put them in good pasture, and in winter put them in fresh pasture until spring, and then put them with the 'holding' sheep.

In these months is corn to be 'shornne or mowen downe' (the writer, it is to be noticed, has no preference for either method); and after the corn is carried put draught horses and oxen into the averish (corn stubble), to ease other pastures; and after them put hogs in. Gather crabs in woods and hedgerows for making verjuice.

September and October. Have all plows and harrows neat and fit for sowing of wheat, rye, mesling (wheat and rye mixed), and vetches.[284]

Pick hops. Buy store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four years old, which being well wintered at gra.s.s, or on straw at the barn doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will sooner feed after straw than gra.s.s.

From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more hardly bred and become the stronger cattle. Feed brawns, bacons, lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn. 'In these months cleanse poundes or pools, this season being the driest;' an extraordinary a.s.sertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.[285]

November and December. Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz.

wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of gra.s.s and the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be weaklings. It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses from gra.s.s into the house before any great storms begin. Thrash corn now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives:

'Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas, Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.'

FOOTNOTES:

[252] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard, _Herbal_ (ed.

1633), p. 232.

[253] About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep fatted on clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers, and that sheep fatten very well on turnips. Houghton, _Collection for Improvement of Husbandry_, iv. 142. This is said to be the first notice of turnips being given to sheep.

[254] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 77. One of the proofs of the rarity of vegetables among the poorer cla.s.ses of England, especially in the Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind never included them.

[255] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 19.

[256] Chapple, _Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon_ (1785), p. 17 n.

_Victoria County History: Devons.h.i.+re, Agriculture_.

[257] Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure. 'Live the commoners do indeed', he says, 'very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger and ease. Better do these in Bridewell. What they get they spend. And can they make even at the year's rent?'

[258] Rymer, _Foedera_ (Orig. ed.), xix. 512.

[259] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hamps.h.i.+re Record Society, p. 172.

[260] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, p. 459.

[261] Houghton, _Collections, &c._, ii. 448.

[262] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. p. vii.

Cf. p. 139 infra.

[263] Cullum, _Hawsted_, pp. 196 et seq. In the Hawsted leases, at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, it is noteworthy that there were, at a time of repeated complaints against laying down land to pasture, clauses against breaking up pasture land.

[264] In 1677 there were complaints of a fall in rents.

[265] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hamps.h.i.+re Record Society, pp. 178 et seq.

[266] Rawl. A. 170, No. 101.

[267] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, ii. 483.

[268] Ibid. ii. 630.

[269] Ibid. iii. 147. The rental of the lands in England in 1600 was estimated by Davenant at 6,000,000, in 1688 at 14,000,000; and in 1726 by Phillips at 20,000,000. Ibid. iii. 133. In 1850, Caird estimated it at 37,412,000.

[270] With what horror would those legislators have contemplated England's position to-day, when a temporary loss of the command of the sea would probably ruin the country.