1600-1700
CLOVER AND TURNIPS.--GREAT RISE IN PRICES. MORE ENCLOSURE.--A FARMING
CALENDAR
The seventeenth century was one of considerable progress in English
agriculture. The decay of common-field farming was enabling individual
enterprise to have its way. The population was rapidly growing; by
1688 the returns of the hearth tax prove that the northern counties
were nearly as thickly populated as the southern, and prices during
the first half were continually rising, though after that they
remained almost stationary, since the effect of the influx of precious
metals from the New World was exhausted. In the first half of the
century John Smyth ascribes the advance of rents to the Castilian
voyages opening the New World, whereby such floods of treasure have
flowed into Europe that the rates of Christendom are raised near
twentyfold'.
But the greatest agricultural event of the century was the
introduction of clover and the encouragement of turnips as grown in
Holland, by Sir Richard Weston, about 1645. No doubt the turnip was
already well known in England. Tusser and Fitzherbert both mention it,
apparently as a garden root only; but Gerard in his _Herbal_, 1597,
says it grew in fields 'and divers vineyards or hoppe gardens in most
places of England', which certainly points to an effort having been
made generally to use it as a field crop whenever an enclosed space
gave it some protection from the depredations of the common herds.
However, its cultivation must have declined, as long after this it was
regarded as a novelty as a field crop in most parts of England.[252]
In Holland it had been used in the field universally, and this use
with that of 'great', as it was called, or broad clover, Weston
pressed on the English farmer. But their progress was wofully slow. At
Hawsted in Suffolk clover and turnips were first sown about 1700, and
the eastern portion of England was far ahead of the north and west; as
late as 1772 Arthur Young wrote that 'sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes,
and carrots are not common crops in England; I do not imagine above
half or at most two-thirds of the nation cultivate clover.'[253] Yet
their introduction must have been of the greatest benefit to the
farmer and the public; his stock of hay was increased, he could
utilize his fallows, and keep a much larger head of stock through the
winter, who would give him a greater quantity of manure. Every one
where turnips were grown could now have fresh meat during the winter.
The slow progress of these great blessings is perhaps the strongest
testimony in our history of the innate conservatism of the farmer. The
green crop was for long considered to be suited only to the garden,
and as our forefathers were prejudiced against the spade it was
difficult to get such crops cultivated even there; but it should also
be remembered that no crop was possible in the common fields which did
not come to maturity before Lammas, unless some special agreement was
made as to it.[254] Clover, Sir Richard Weston said, thrives best when
sown on the worst and barrenest ground, which was to be pared and
burnt, and unslaked lime added to the ashes. Then it was to be well
ploughed and harrowed, and about 10 lb. of seed sown per acre in the
end of March or in April. 'It will stand five years, and then when
ploughed up will yield three or four years running rich crops of
wheat, and then a crop of oats, after which you may sow clover again.'
In the seventeenth century the practice of liming and marling, which
had been largely discontinued since the fourteenth century, was
revived (Westcote, in his _View of Devon_ in 1630, calls liming, &c.,
a new invention), and there was also a great improvement in
implements. Patents were taken out for draining machines in 1628, for
new manures in 1633-6, ploughs 1623-7 and 1634, mechanical sowing
1634-9. Only six were taken out, however, between 1640 and 1760 that
concerned agriculture.[255] The Civil War checked the improvement, for
though the great mass of the people had nothing to do with either
party, the country was of necessity in a very unsettled state, and
both sides plundered indiscriminately. Yet in some parts, as in
Devonshire, so many of the able men served in the two armies, that few
but old men, women, and children were left to manage the farms, and
even they were afraid to grow more than enough to supply themselves
since both armies seized the crops.[256] These bad effects lasted for
some time afterwards; Chapple, a Devonshire land agent of the
eighteenth century, says he had talked with people who remembered the
state of husbandry in the last ten or twelve years of the reign of
Charles II, when in many parts of Devonshire an acre or two of wheat
was esteemed a rarity.
That the rate of progress in the century was not more rapid is
attributed by Blyth to several causes[257]:--
1. Want of leases, by which tenants were deprived of security.
2. Discouragement to flood (irrigate) land, from the risk of
law suits with neighbours.
3. Intermixture of different properties in common fields.
4. Unlimited pasturage on commons, by which they were overstocked.
5. The want of a law compelling all men to kill moles.
6. The excessive number of water-mills, to the great destruction
of much gallant land.
The average price of wheat during the seventeenth century was 41s. a
quarter, of barley 22s., and oats 14s. 8-1/2d. Oxen averaged about £5
apiece, cows much less, about £3, and there was not much change in
their value during the century. Sheep were about 10s. 6d., and a
cart-horse in the first half of the century from £5 to £10, in the
second half from £8 to £15. Beef rose from 2d. a lb. in the early part
of the century to 3d. at the close of it. Wool remained stationary at
from 9d. to 1s. per lb.
[258]A proclamation of 1633 fixed the
following prices for London poulterers and victuallers:--
s. d.
Best turkey-cock 4 4
Duck 8
Best hen 1 0
3 eggs 1
1 lb. best fresh butter in winter 6
1 lb. best fresh butter in summer 5
1 lb. best salt butter 4-1/2
Best fat goose 2 0
" crammed capon 2 6
" pullet 1 6
" chicken 6
According to the _Manydown Manor Rolls_ the Wootton churchwardens in
1600 paid from 8s. to 11s. for calves, 4s. 4d. for a fat lamb, 8s. for
a sheep, 6s. 8d. for a barren ewe, 6d. for a couple of chickens, 1s.
6d. for 500 faggots.[259]
After the restoration in 1660 another period of prosperity set
in,[260] and altogether the century was a prosperous one for farmers
and manufacturers. The newly established Royal Society materially
helped agriculture. 'Since his majesty's most happy restoration the
whole land hath been fermented and stirred up by the profitable hints
it hath received from the Royal Society, by which means parks have
been disparked, commons enclosed, woods turned into arable, and
pasture lands improved by clover, St. foine, turnips, cole-seed, and
many other good husbandries, so that the food of cattle is increased
as fast, if not faster, than the consumption, and by these means the
rent of the kingdom is far greater than ever it was.'[261] The century
was distinguished also for the curious number of cycles of good and
bad seasons; 1646-50 were years of prolonged dearth, wheat reaching an
enormous price, and 1661-2, were famine years, while the end of the
century was long famous for its barren years.
With the prices of produce rents rose enormously. Very early in the
century[262] rents of arable land had increased ninefold, since the
fifteenth century, and by 1688 Davenant and King estimated the average
rent of arable land in England at 5s. 6d. per acre and of permanent
grass at 8s. 8d. Perhaps this is too high an estimate, as on the
Belvoir estate of 17,837 acres in 1692 the rental all round was 3s.
9-1/4d. an acre for land above the average in quality, though it must
be remembered that the Earls and Dukes of Rutland were indulgent
landlords.
The _History of Hawsted_ affords a valuable index of the increase of
rents at this period.[263] In 1500 the average rent was 1s. 4d. an
acre; in 1572, 39 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture were let for
2s. 3d. an acre, the landlord, it is interesting to notice, reserving
the right of hawking, netting rabbits, hunting, and fowling; and about
the same date other lands on the estate were let at 1s. 3d. and 1s.
6d. an acre, so that there had not generally been much advance since
1500, which is what we should expect, as the great rise took place at
the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
centuries. In 1589, therefore, it is not surprising to find that 40
acres of meadow and pasture let at 5s. an acre, and in 1611 some
buildings and 155 acres of park at 11s. an acre. In 1616, 366 acres of
arable and pasture and 39 acres of meadow were valued at 12s. an acre
for letting, and the Hall Farm of 175 acres (8-1/2 acres meadow) at
10s.; and Great Pipers Farm of 138 acres (8 meadow) at 7s., while
meadow and pasture near the mansion was valued at 21s. an acre.
In 1658 the rent of the Hall Farm had advanced from 10s. an acre to
about 13s., though in 1682 it went down to 11s. 6d.[264] According to
the survey of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire in 1650, meadow land
was worth 20s. an acre, pasture 8s. to 10s., arable from 2s. to 10s.,
the latter showing a great variation in quality.[265] In 1723 Bryers
Wood Farm at Hawsted, which had been let in 1620 for £15, was let at
£29 5s. These rents are considerably higher than the estimate of
Davenant and King; but it must be remembered that they were for land
in the parts of England, where farming was at its best, and they, in
accounting for the whole country, had to take into consideration a
vast amount of land in the north and west which was worth very little.
In the Rawlinson Collection[266] in the Bodleian Library is a rental
of Lord Kingston's estate in north Nottinghamshire in 1689, the rents
averaging 10s. an acre; but this was an exceptionally good estate,
much of the property being meadow and pasture. The farmhouses also
were above the average, while in two of the parishes the tenants had
rights of common, and in two others the tenancies were tithe free.
There was very little arable land on the estate, three small holdings
letting for 6s. 8d. an acre; and some of the pasture land was let at
14s., 15s. 6d., and even 18s. an acre. The largest farm, Saundby Hall,
of 607 acres, nearly all meadow and pasture, was 9s. 10d. an acre. The
cottages were fortunate in having pieces of land attached to them. In
Saundby, Richard Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of arable land
for £1 13s. 4d.; Widow Johnson a cottage and yard for 13s. 4d.;
William Daubney a cottage with 6-1/2 acres of arable and 5-1/2 acres
of pasture for £7 18s. 6d. A farm in Scrooby, consisting of a
messuage, cottage, and 113 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture, only
let at £23.
As to the freehold value of land, in 1621, according to D'Ewes, it was
worth from sixteen to twenty years' purchase; yet, in 1688, Sir Josiah
Child said that lands now sell at twenty years' purchase, which fifty
or sixty years before sold at eight or ten; and he also states, 'the
same farms or lands to be now sold would yield treble and in some
cases six times the money they were sold for fifty years ago'.[267]
Davenant puts land at twelve years' purchase in 1600, at eighteen
years in 1688.[268] In 1729 the price of land was said to be
twenty-seven years' purchased.[269]
The legislation against laying down tillage to grass 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 grass. In 1620
Coke 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 township.
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 grass 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 Coke'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 passed 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 assertion 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 Leicestershire, 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. Northamptonshire,
Leicestershire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire were
comparatively unenclosed.[275] From the books and maps of the day 'it
is clear that many routes which now pass 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 circumference 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 class was increasing; the successful merchant and
lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense
land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffordshire 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 accumulation 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 Lincolnshire 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 Huntingdonshire 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 assigned 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 fagoted 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 grass 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 grass 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 grass, or on straw at the barn
doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will
sooner feed after straw than grass.
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 assertion, 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 grass 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 grass 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 classes 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: Devonshire, 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_, Hampshire 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_, Hampshire 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.
[271] 21 Jac. 1, c. 28.
[272] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
xix. 116.
[273] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
xix. 127.
[274] Ibid. 130.
[275] See article in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_
(New Series), xix.
[276] Macaulay, _History of England_, ch. iii.
[277] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, xvii. 587. Considering that
the legislature of the sixteenth century was against enclosure and
depopulation, it is hard to understand 31 Eliz., c. 7, which forbade
cottages to be erected unless 4 acres of land were attached thereto,
in order to avoid the great inconvenience caused by the 'buyldinge of
great nombers and multitude of cottages, which are daylie more and
more increased in many partes of this realme'. How was it that
cottages had increased so much in rural districts, which are of course
alluded to, in spite of enclosure?
[278] Harwood, _Erdeswick_.
[279] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 44.
[280] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 187.
[281] _General View of Hunts._, p. 8.
[282] _General View of Lincoln_, p. 29.
[283] _Farming Calendar_, from an original MS., printed in
_Archaeologia_, xiii. 373 et seq.
[284] Cf. Tusser:
'October for wheat-sowing calleth as fast';
and
'When wheat upon eddish (stubble), ye mind to bestowe Let that be the
first of the wheat ye do sowe';
and
'Who soweth in raine, he shall reap it with tears'.
[285] The writer of the diary probably meant this work should be done
in September.