HISTORY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
The ``combined'' or ``common-field'' system of husbandry
practised by the village community or township (see VILLAGE
COMMUNITIES) may be taken as the starting-point of English
agriculture, in which, till the end of the 18th century, it
is a dominant influence. The territory of the ``township''
consisted of arable land, meadow, pasture and waste. The
arable land was divided into two or, more usually, three
fields, which were cut up into strips bounded by balks and
allotted to the villagers in such a way that one holding might
include several disconnected strips in each field--a measure
designed to prevent the whole of the best land falling to one
man. The fields were fenced in from seed-time to harvest,
after which the fences were taken down and the cattle turned
in to feed on the stubble. According to early methods of
cropping, which were destined to prevail for centuries, wheat,
the chief article of food, was sown in one autumn, reaped
the next August; the following spring, oats or barley were
sown, and the year following the harvest was a period of
fallow. This procedure was followed on each of the three
fields so that in every year one of them was fallow. In
addition to the cereals, beans, peas and vetches were grown
to some extent. The meadow-land was also divided into
strips from which the various holders drew their supply of
hay. The pasture-land was common to all, though the number
of beasts which one man might turn into it was sometimes
limited. Rough grazing could also be had on the outlying waste
lands. In the absence of artificial grasses and roots, hay was
very valuable; it constituted almost the only winter food for
live stock, which were consequently in poor condition in spring.
Under the manorial system, the rise of which preceded the Norman
Conquest, communal methods of husbandry remained, but the
position of the cultivator was radically altered. ``Villeins,''
instead of free-holders, formed the most numerous class of the
population. They were bound to the soil and occupied holdings
of scattered strips (amounting usually to a virgate or 30
acres) in return for a payment partly in labour and partly in
kind. A portion of the manor, generally about a third,
constituted the lord's demesne, which, though sometimes
separate, usually consisted of strips intermingled with
those of his villeins. It thus formed part of the common
farm and was cultivated by the villeins and their oxen under
the superintendence of a bailiff. Below the villeins in the
social scale came the cottiers possessing smaller holdings,
sometimes only a garden, and no oxen. Free tenants and, after
the Norman Conquest, slaves formed small proportions of the
population. During the middle ages cattle and sheep were the
chief farm animals, but the intermixture of stock consequent
on the common-field system was a barrier to improvement in
the breed and conduced to the propagation of disease. Oxen,
usually yoked in teams of eight, were used for ploughing.
Sheep were small and their fleeces light, nevertheless, owing
to the meagreness of the yields of cereals2 and the demand for
wool for export, sheep-farming was looked to, as early as the
12th century, as the chief source of profit. Pigs and poultry
were universally kept. The treatise on husbandry of Walter of
Henley, dating from the early 13th century, is very valuable
as describing the management of the demesne under the two-
or three-field system. The following are typical passages:--
``April is a good season for fallowing, if the earth breaks
up behind the plough: for second fallowing after St John's
Day when the dust rises behind the plough; for seed-ploughing
when the earth is well settled and not too cracked; however,
the busy man cannot be always waiting on the seasons.''
``At sowing do not plough large furrows, but little and
well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly.''
``Know that an acre sown with wheat takes three ploughings,
except lands that are sown each year, and that each
ploughing costs 6d. more or less and the harrowing 1d.
It is well to sow at least two bushels to the acre.''
``Change your seed every year at Michaelmas, for the seed grown
on other land will bring you more than that grown on your own.''
``Neither sell your stubble nor move it from the ground unless you need
it for thatching. Have manure put up in heaps and mixed with earth.''
``Ridge marshy ground so as to let the water run off.''
During the 13th century there arose a tendency to commute
labour-rents for money payments. This change led to the
gradual disappearance of tenants in villeinage--the villeins
and cottiers--and the rise on the one hand of the small
independent farmer, on the other of the hired labourer. The
plague of 1348 marks an epoch in English agriculture. The
diminution of the population by one-half led to a scarcity of
labour and an increase of wages which deprived the landowner
of his narrow margin of profit. To meet this situation, the
Statute of Labourers (1351) enacted that no man should refuse
to work at the same rate of wages as prevailed before the
plague. In addition the landowners attempted to revive the
disappearing system of labour-rents. The bitter feelings
engendered between employer and employed culminated in
the peasants' revolt of 1381. Meanwhile large numbers of
landowners were forced to adopt one of two alternatives.
In some cases they ceased to farm their own land and let it
out on lease often together with the stock upon it; or else
they abandoned arable culture, laid down their demesnes to
pasture, enclosed the waste lands and devoted themselves to
sheep-farming. In the latter course they were encouraged
by the high prices of wool during the 14th century, and by
Edward III.'s policy of fostering both the export of wool
and the home manufacture of woollen goods. The 15th century,
barren of progress in methods of husbandry, was in its
early years moderately prosperous. Later on the increasing
abandonment of arable husbandry for sheep-farming brought
about a less demand for labour, and rural depopulation was
accelerated as the peasant was deprived of his grazing-ground
by the enclosure of more and more of the waste land.3
From the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. to the end
of Elizabeth's, a number of statutes were made for the
Agriculture under the Tudors and Stuarts.
encouragement of tillage, though probably to little purpose.
``Where in some towns,'' says the statute 4th Henry VII.
(1488), ``two hundred persons were occupied and lived of
their lawful labours. now there are occupied two or three
herdsmen, and the residue fall into idleness''; therefore it
is ordained that houses which within three years have been
let for farms, with twenty acres of land lying in tillage or
husbandry, shall be upheld, under the penalty of half the
profits, to be forfeited to the king or the lord of the
fee. Almost half a century afterwards the practice had become
still more alarming; and in 1534 a new act was tried, apparently
with as little success. ``Some have 24,000 sheep, some 20,000
sheep, some 10,000, some 6000, some 4000, and some more and
some less''; and yet it is alleged the price of wool had nearly
doubled, ``sheep being come to a few persons' hands.'' A
penalty was therefore imposed on all who kept above 2000 sheep;
and no person was to take in farm more than two tenements of
husbandry. By the 39th Elizabeth (1597) arable land made
pasture since the 1st Elizabeth shall be again converted into
tillage, and what is arable shall not be converted into pasture.
The literature of agriculture, in abeyance since the treatise
of Walter of Henley, makes another beginning in the 16th
century. The best of the early works is the Book of
Husbandry (1st ed. 1523), commonly ascribed to Sir Anthony
Fitzherbert, a judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of
Henry VIII., but more probably written by his elder brother
John. This was followed by the Book of Surveying and
Improvements (1523), by the same author. In the former
treatise we have a clear and minute description of the rural
practices of that period, and from the latter may be learned a
good deal of the economy of the feudal system in its decline.
The Book of Husbandry begins with a description of the
plough and other implements, after which about a third part
of it is occupied with the several operations as they succeed
one another throughout the year. Among other passages
in this part of the work, the following deserve notice:--
``Somme (ploughs) wyll tourn the sheld bredith at every
landsende, and plowe all one way''; the same kind of
plough that is now found so useful on hilly grounds. Of
wheel-ploughs he observes, that ``they be good on even
grounde that lyeth lyghte''; and on such lands they are
still most commonly employed. Cart-wheels were sometimes
bound with iron; of which he greatly approves. On the much
agitated question about the employment of horses or oxen in
labour, the most important arguments are distinctly stated.
``In some places,'' he says, ``a horse plough is better,'' and
in others an oxen plough, to which, upon the whole, he gives the
preference. Beans and peas seem to have been common crops. He
mentions the different kinds of wheat, barley and oats; and after
describing the method of harrowing ``all maner of cornnes,'' we
find the roller employed. ``They used to role their barley grounde
after a showr of rayne, to make the grounde even to mowe.''
Under the article ``To falowe,'' he observes, ``the greater
clottes (clods) the better wheate, for the clottes kepe the
wheat warme all wynter; and at March they will melte and
breake and fal in manye small peces, the whiche is a new
dongynge and refreshynge of the corne.'' This is agreeable to
the present practice, founded on the very same reasons. ``In
May, the shepe folde is to be set out''; but Fitzherbert does
not much approve of folding, and points out its disadvantages
in a very judicious manner. ``In the latter end of May and
the begynnynge of June, is tyme to wede the corne''; and then
we have an accurate description of the different weeds, and
the instruments and mode of weeding. Next comes a second
ploughing of the fallow; and afterwards, in the latter end of
June, the mowing of the meadows begins. Of this operation,
and of the forks and rakes and the haymaking there is a very
good account. The corn harvest naturally follows: rye and
wheat were usually shorn, and barley and oats cut with the
scythe. The writer does not approve of the common practice
of cutting wheat high and then mowing the stubbles. ``In
Somersetshire,'' he says, ``they do shere theyr wheat very
lowe; and the wheate strawe that they purpose to make thacke
of, they do not threshe it, but cut off the ears, and bynd
it in sheves, and call it rede, and therewith they thacke
theyr houses.'' He recommends the practice of setting up corn
in shocks, with two sheaves to cover eight, instead of ten
sheaves as at present--probably owing to the straw being then
shorter. The corn was commonly housed; but if there be
a want of room, he advises that the ricks be built on a
scaffold and not upon the ground. The fallow received a
third ploughing in September, and was sown about Michaelmas.
``Wheat is moost commonlye sowne under the forowe, that is to
say, cast it uppon the falowe, and then plowe it under'';
and this branch of his subject is concluded with directions
about threshing, winnowing and other kinds of barn-work.
Fitzherbert next proceeds to live stock. ``An housbande,'' he
