THE STORY OF THE FIELDS
What was Ancient Britain?--Marshes and
bittern--Oak forest--Pines--Savage
country--Cornfield--Fire--Ice--Forest--Worms--Paleolithic
family--The first farmers--Alfred the Great's first Government
agricultural leaflet--Dr. Johnson--Prince Charlie's time--Misery
of our forefathers--Oatmeal, milk, and cabbages--Patrick
Miller--Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_--Flourishing days of 1830
to 1870--Derelict farmhouses and abandoned crofts--Where have
the people gone?--Will they come back?
When the eyes of man first beheld Britain, what sort of country was
this of ours? It is very interesting to try to imagine what it was
like, but of course it is a very difficult task. Still it is worth
the attempt, for we ought to know something of what has been done by
our forefathers.
Where the great rivers Thames, Humber, Tyne, Forth, Clyde, Mersey,
and Severn, approached the seashore they lost themselves in
wildernesses of desolate, dreary fenlands. Here a small scrubby wood
of willow, birch, and alder; there a miles-wide stretch of reeds
and undrained marsh intersected by sluggish, lazy rivers, or varied
by stagnant pools. The bittern boomed in those marshes. Herons,
geese, swans, ducks, and aquatic birds of all sorts found what is
now Chelsea a paradise, only disturbed by the eagle, harrier-hawk,
vulture, and the like.
Neither at the mouth nor even much higher up in its valley-course,
was a river a steady stream in a defined bed. Such beds as it had
were probably four or five times their present width; they would be
quite irregular, meandering about, changing at every flood, full of
islands, loops, backwaters, and continually interrupted by snags of
trees.
The rolling hills of the lowlands would be an almost unbroken forest
of oak, except where perhaps level land and the absence of drainage
produced a marsh or horrible peat-moss. But when we say forest, we do
not mean a glorified Richmond Park.
In good soil there might indeed be tall and magnificent trees. But it
would be quite impossible to see them! The giants of the forest would
be concealed in an inextricable tangle of young trees, brushwood,
fallen logs, creepers, and undergrowth. Where the soil was sandy or
stony, it might be a scrub rather than a forest, of gnarled, twisted,
and stunted oaks, or possibly thickets of sloe, birch, rowan,
hawthorn, brambles, and briers.
Every stream would be "wild water" leaping down waterfalls and
cutting out irregular, little woody ravines. Here and there boulders
and escarpments of rock would break through the forest soil, which
would be mossy, thick with undergrowth, and entangled with rotting
fallen trunks and branches, crossing at every conceivable angle. The
higher hills were covered by a dreary, sombre pine forest. It was of
a monotonous, desolate character. Greenish-grey tufts of Old Man's
Beard lichen hung from the branches. The ground, treacherous, and
broken by boulders, peaty hollows, and dead logs, would be shrouded
in a soft, thick cushion of feathery Mosses, with Blaeberry, Ferns,
Trientalis, Linnea, Dwarf Cornel, and other rare plants. Through
it descended raging and destructive torrents which here might be
checked and foamed over dead logs, whilst in another place they cut
out bare earth-escarpments or started new waterfalls which ate back
into the hills behind.
At the summit of the higher hills, bare rock crags projected out of
occasional alpine grassy slopes, or irregular terraces, ravines, and
gullies. Below, these alpine ravines ended in a peat-moss, which
scattered, dwarfed, distorted, and miserable-looking Scotch Firs and
Birches painfully endeavoured to colonize. Here and there on very
steep hillsides, wiry, tussocky grass might be growing instead of
forest or peat.
A horrible, forbidding, and desolate land, where Deer, Irish elk,
bison, bear, wolf, boar, wolverine, badger, and fox, alone enjoyed
themselves.
Now consider our country to-day. Mark the "trim little fields"; "that
hedge there must have been clipt about eighty years"; "The lifting
day showed the stucco villas on the green and the awful orderliness
of England--line upon line, wall upon wall, solid stone dock and
monolithic pier."[67] The road, carefully macadamized, sweeps on
correct and straight or gracefully curving from neat village to
countrytown. In the heart of the country the roadsides are scraped
bare to produce that hideous tidiness which is dear to the soul of
the County Council roadman. That is if an individual whose life is
spent in stubbing up roses, briers, and every visible wild flower,
can possibly possess a soul! Those fields without a rock, or even
a projecting stone, have been drained, dug over, and levelled with
the greatest possible care. The very rivers have been straightened
and embanked; the rows of pollarded willows have been planted;
they may, when in flood, overflow, but the results are very soon no
longer visible. Even on the moors and in the depths of the Highlands,
black-faced sheep, draining, and the regular burning of the heather,
have quite transformed our country.
[67] Kipling.
The original woods have long since vanished: those which now exist
are mostly quite artificial plantations, and the very trees are often
strangers to Britain.
The story of the Herculean labour by which our country, once as
wild and as savage as its early inhabitants the Icenians and
Catieuchlanians (and probably with lineaments as barbarous as those
of the Coritanian and Trinobant), has been changed to peaceful,
fertile meadowlands or tidy arable, is one long romance. To tell it
properly would require a book to itself. In this chapter we shall
only try to sketch what may have happened on one particular cornfield
which exists on the trap-rocks of Kilbarchan, near Glasgow.[68] The
reader must bear in mind that even this is a very ambitious attempt!
It is an exceedingly difficult undertaking.
[68] As the story probably differs in detail for every district,
the author is obliged to confine himself to ground which he has
actually seen and studied.
The subsoil in this particular cornfield (on Pennell Brae) lies upon
the trap-rock formed by one of those gigantic lava-flows which cover
that part of Renfrewshire. The whole district at that time must have
been exactly like Vesuvius during the late eruption. Its scenery
in this early miocene period consisted of glowing molten rock,
accompanied by flames of fire, electrical storms, clouds of gas,
dust, ashes, and superheated steam.
[Illustration: THEN--
A landscape in Ancient Britain.]
[Illustration: AND NOW
The same landscape at the present time. Notice how the outline
of the hills has been softened and its shape rounded. The forest
has almost vanished and the river is bridged and confined within
definite banks; in fact, only the ravine remains much the same.]
Every plant and every animal must have been exterminated. That
was unfortunate, for, at that time, Pines, Oaks, Guelder Rose,
Willows, as well as Sequoias allied to the Mammoth tree and
Sassafras, may have lived in Scotland along with tapirs, opossums,
marsupials, and other extraordinary beasts.
When the lava cooled and became trap-rock, it was at once attacked
by frost, by wind, and by rain. Then by a very slow process of
colonization, vegetation slowly and gradually crept over the
trap-rock and rich mould and plant remains accumulated. At a much
later date, there was another wholesale destruction. This time, it
was the great Ice Sheet coming down from the Highland hills. Probably
it drove heavily over the top of Pennell Brae and worked up into fine
mud and powder every vestige of the miocene vegetation.
The very rocks themselves would be scratched, polished, and rounded
off. When the glaciers melted away and left the surface free, it
would consist of these rounded rocks alternating with clay-filled
hollows. The trap-rock below would be covered by a subsoil due to
particles of trap, of Highland and other mud, with remains of the
miocene vegetation. Upon this surface, frost, wind, sunshine, and
rain would again begin to perform their work.
But the subsoil, thus wonderfully formed by fire in the miocene,
by frost in the glacial, and by weather in our own geological
period, very soon felt the protecting and sheltering effect of a
plant-covering.
First a green herb rooted itself every here and there amidst the
desolate boulder-clay or perhaps in a crevice where good earth had
accumulated. Then the scattered colonists began to form groups; soon
patches of green moss united them. Then a continuous green carpet
could be traced over a few yards here and perhaps on a few feet
somewhere else. But when things had got as far as this, progress
became much more rapid, and soon the whole site of the future
cornfield was covered over by a continuous green carpet. Only, every
here and there, hard stones and uncompromising trap-rocks remained
still protruding from the green covering.
In another chapter this first covering of the soil will be described
at length.
So far it has been _subsoil_ and _underlying rock_, but now the roots
begin to disintegrate and work up the subsoil; the earthworm has his
chance, and forms true _soil_. On this particular hillside, the water
would drain away and there would be no danger of mosses strangling
and choking the Blaeberry and the Heather. The worm flourished and
multiplied, and the soil became rich and black. Here and there a Sloe
or a Rowan, or Poplar, or perhaps Alder and Birch, began to appear.
In certain places Whins and Brooms, Brambles and Briers, diversified
the hillside. Then a few Scotch firs began to push their way up,
through the thickets. At first they were very small and stunted, but
as each one formed a dense, deep-going mass of hardy roots, they were
able to investigate the riches of the subsoil. Every year the amount
of leaf-mould above increased, until the original moss-covering was
utterly destroyed and a pine forest (see Chap. XXVIII.) occupied
Pennell Brae.
About this time, a paleolithic family may have encamped on the side
of the cliff near a little stream which can still be traced. The camp
was only a few sticks and branches, with a skin or two for shelter
from the north wind. The women lopped down fir branches for firewood,
and cut up the young trees. The children set fire to the shrubs on
dry days and paths ran here and there through the forest. This would
be about 198,000 B.C.
Every year meant a further very gradual, slow destruction of the pine
forest.
About 60,000 B.C., our paleolithic hunters with chipped-stone
weapons would be obliged to travel further to the north. New savages
with round heads and polished-stone weapons would make life in
Renfrewshire too uncertain and too diversified by massacres. These
last possessed seed corn, a few fruit trees as well as goats, cattle,
and perhaps a few hardy, shaggy ponies. At first these settlers
would be obliged to live in a lake dwelling, say in Linwood Moss,
which is close at hand. They would then drive their cattle over the
surrounding district, and camp in slightly-built villages. Near at
hand, probably on the hill, they would build a (round) camp or fort,
where they could fly for safety in the continual fights and invasions
of the period.
Sooner or later a village would be built near Pennell Brae. One
summer day the villagers attacked the wood that covered it; they cut
down all the small brushwood and hacked through the bark of every big
tree. After a few weeks, when the trees were dead, the wood was set
on fire. Then a rough fold made of rude wattle and daub was formed,
and every night the cattle and sheep were driven in.
After three or four years, this fold would be ploughed up by
exceedingly rude instruments. Barley or certain kinds of wheat would
be grown year after year until the crop was not worth gathering.
When that happened, another fold would be ploughed up. Probably the
whole of Pennell Brae went through this rude sort of agricultural
treatment at one time or another. At the same time goats, cattle, and
the demand for firewood, obtained in the most reckless and wasteful
manner, would have very seriously interfered with the forest.
Although no doubt great changes for the better were introduced, the
spearmen of Wallace of Elderslie close by had their "infield" land,
which was practically the sheepfold as above described, and their
"outfield" or grazing commons. Even down to 1745 the above system was
practised (see below).
But when men's minds were stirred up and invigorated by the great
Revolution of 1788-1820, all sorts of new agricultural discoveries
were made. Yet the cornfield on Pennell Brae was probably not drained
or enclosed by stone walls and hedges until 1830 to 1840! About 1870,
it was more profitable to its owner than it has ever been since,
though even now it forms part of our British farmlands which yield,
on the whole, a larger amount of oats per acre than those of any
other country in the world (except possibly Denmark).
Let us however look a little closer into the long, long period during
which the "fire and stone-axe methods" of farming prevailed. Before
the Romans landed there seem to have been no towns.[69] There was but
little cultivation, for the Britons wore skins and lived chiefly on
milk and flesh.
[69] Mr. Chisholm, _Geographical Journal_, November, 1897.
In the time of King Alfred, the increase of population made
it necessary to take more trouble about farming, so we find a
description of what the good farmer ought to do. We might call this
the very first Government leaflet, and it has led to the Agricultural
Leaflets published by the Board of Agriculture for Great Britain and
Ireland.
"Sethe wille wyrcan wastbaere lond ateo hin of tham acre aefest sona
fearn and thornas and figrsas swasame weods."
He was to clear off fern, bracken, thorns, sloe, hawthorn,
bramble, whin, and weeds. The names of the months give some idea of
Anglo-Saxon methods of farming. May was _Thrimylce_, because the
cows might then be milked thrice a day. August was _Weodmonath_
(weed-month), November _Blotmonath_, or blood-month, because the
cattle were then killed to supply salt beef for winter time.[70]
[70] Sir H. Maxwell, _Memories of the Months_, First Series.
Very much later in history, after our English friends had laid
waste and depopulated Scotland, so that woods sprang up again
everywhere, and again long after that time when the gradual increase
of population had again utterly destroyed those woods, a certain Dr.
Johnson travelled from Carlisle to Edinburgh. This gentleman declared
that he saw no tree between those places. This statement must not be
taken too literally, for he had written a dictionary and considered
himself not merely the _Times_ but an _Encyclopædia Britannica_ as
well.[71]
[71] This may of course have been an exaggeration, a sort of
joke. But he had no right to make jokes on such a subject.
The Earl of Dundonald (in 1795) thus describes the agriculture of
1745 (Prince Charlie's days): "The outfield land never receives any
manure. After taking from it two or three crops of grain it is left
in the state it was in at reaping the last crop, without sowing
thereon grass-seeds for the protection of any sort of herbage. During
the first two or three years a sufficiency of grass to maintain a
couple of rabbits per acre is scarcely produced. In the course of
some years it acquires a sward, and after having been depastured for
some years more, it is again submitted to the same barbarous system
of husbandry" (that is used as a fold and then ploughed up). In the
same year (1745) in Meigle parish, the land was never allowed to lie
fallow: neither pease, grass, turnips, nor potatoes were raised. No
cattle were fattened. A little grain (oats or barley) was exported.
In 1754 or thereabouts, there was only one cart in the parish of
Keithhall. Everything was carried about on ponies' backs, as is the
case nowadays in the most unsettled parts of Canada. The country in
places was almost impassable. Bridges did not exist, and the roads
were mere tracks. In Rannoch the tenants had no beds, but lay on the
ground on couches of heather or fern. These houses were built of
wattle and daub, and so low that people had to crawl in on hands and
feet and could not stand upright.
"In the best times that class of people seldom could indulge in
animal food, and they were in use to support themselves in part with
the blood taken from their cattle at different periods, made into
puddings or bread with a mixture of oatmeal. Their common diet was
either oatmeal, barley, or bear, cleared of the husks in a stone
trough by a wooden mallet, and boiled with milk; coleworts or greens
also contributed much to their subsistence, and cabbages when boiled
and mashed with a little oatmeal."[72] Potatoes were introduced in
Dumfriesshire some time after 1750, and the use of lime as manure at
about the same time. Even in 1775 the roads were such that no kind of
loaded carriages could pass without the greatest difficulty.
[72] Mr. John Murray, of Murraythwaite, referring probably to
1780, from Singer, _Agricultural Survey of Dumfriesshire_, 1812.
There is a most fascinating account in Dr. Singer's work of a
strong man's difficulties in starting reasonable agriculture in
Dumfriesshire about the year 1785. This was Patrick Miller, of
Dalswinton. (It was on Dalswinton Loch that he tried the very first
steamboat.) "When I went to view my purchase, I was so much disgusted
for eight or ten days that I then meant never to return to this
county. A trivial accident set me to work, and I have in a great
manner resided here ever since.... I have now gone over all of this
estate, and this I have done without the aid of a tenant.... I need
not inform you that the first steps in improvement are draining when
necessary, inclosing sufficiently, removing stones, roots, rubbish
of every kind, and liming.... These operations cost me, I reckon,
about £11 per acre upon an average; and I lay my account with being
repaid all my expenses by the first three crops, but at any rate by
the fourth. When the land which I make arable will give at least (if
brought from a state of nature) twenty times the rent when I began to
improve it."
Major-General Dirom, of Mount Annan, writing from that place in 1811,
says that all over Scotland for about thirty years (from 1780-1810)
he has seen "cultivation extending from the valleys to the hills,
commons inclosed, wastes planted, and heaths everywhere giving way to
corn: ... extension of towns and villages, by new lines of excellent
roads, magnificent bridges and inland navigation ... our rapidly
increasing population, by our now exporting great quantities of grain
from parts of Scotland into which it was formerly imported, and by
the superior comfort and abundance which appear in the domestic
economy of the inhabitants." If you read any newspaper of to-day
published in Canada or in the Argentine Republic, you find exactly
the same process at work, and the same enthusiasm about it. Even in
1840-1850 all these improvements were still vigorously going on.
Look at Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_ (old style):--
"'An I a stubb'd Thurnaby waäste.
Dobbut looök at the waäste, theer warnt no feeäd for a cow,
Nowt at all but bracken an fuzz, an looök at it now.
Warnt worth nowt a haäcre and now there's lots o feeäd,
Four scoor yows upon it an some on it down i seeäd."
Even in his days, the good farmer was following King Alfred's
directions. About 1830-1850 most of the land was in good bearing, and
the roads were sufficiently good to admit of the stage-coach with
four horses. But they after all lasted but a very short time before
the railways again entirely altered the conditions of country life.
As we have seen, rents were in places, five times as large in
1820-1830 as they had ever been previously.[73] Therefore it was that
about this time the gentlemen's houses were in many places rebuilt
on a more magnificent scale. Then also were begun those circles and
strips, or belts of plantation, which are now conspicuous features
of the Scotch lowlands. An enormous majority of these plantations
are not more than eighty years old. I think avenues were planted in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The fashion about 1820 was
to destroy them as unnatural, at least in England. Unfortunately no
respect was paid to the economic practice of forestry, with very
unfortunate results for the proprietor.
[73] The agricultural rents in Dumfriesshire were valued in 1656
at £13,225, in 1790-1800 as £109,700, in 1808 £219,037 10s. 8d.
In 1905 the value per acre was from £1 to £2.
The rest of this chapter is necessarily unpleasant and distressing
reading, but it is necessary if we are to understand the romance
of the fields. As one wanders over the grassy pastures of Southern
Scotland, where the black-faced sheep foolishly start away, and where
one's ears are irritated by the scolding complaints of the curlew
or whaup, it is no rare accident to find a few broken-down walls, a
clump of nettles, and badly grown ash trees. That was once a farm
steading, where a healthy troop of children used to play together
after walking three or more miles barefoot to school. The ash trees
were planted at every farm "toon," for the Scottish spear was a very
necessary weapon until recent times. Often also, upon some monotonous
grouse moor, one sees the ridges that betoken a little croft where a
cottager lived.
In one parish (Troqueer) over seventy country cottages have been
abandoned during the lifetime of a middle-aged person.
Many families, of which the laird was often the best farmer in the
district and his own factor, have disappeared. The fine houses, with
their parks and shootings, are let to strangers, who come for a few
weeks or months, and then leave it in charge of a caretaker. Before
this recent development, the "family" lived all the year round upon
the land; they spent their income chiefly in wages to the country
people. Where once forty or fifty people were employed all the year,
there are now but three or four. The big house with shuttered windows
and weed-grown walks, is a distressing and saddening spectacle.
Of course such changes must occur. The farmer's and the cottar's
children are now carrying out in Canada, Australia, or the United
States, what was done in Scotland from 1780-1830. India, South
Africa, and China have been developed by the brains and hold the
graves of many of the laird's sons.
Yet this poor old country, abandoned of her children, shows signs of
revival. Both the poor and the rich are beginning to find out that a
country life is healthier, quite as interesting, and sometimes quite
as profitable as the overcrowded city with its manufactories, mills,
and offices. All new countries are beginning to fill up, and there
is some hope that a new and vigorous development of farming may make
the countryside once more vigorous, prosperous, and full of healthy
children.