"To the Operation of the same Cause must also be attributed, in great Measure, the slow Progress which was formerly made in the Improvement of Agriculture. Discouraged by the Expence of procuring Manure, and the uncertain Returns, which arose from such confined Markets, the Farmer wanted both Spirit and Ability to exert himself in the Cultivation of his Lands. On this Account Undertakings in Husbandry were then generally small, calculated rather to be a Means of Subsistence to particular Families than a Source of Wealth to the Publick." Postlethwayt's authority on the roads of Sussex declared that their condition at that time (1745) "hardly admits the country people to travel to markets in winter, and makes corn dear at the market because it cannot be bought, and cheap at the farmer's house because he cannot sometimes carry it to market." This fact is confirmed by G. R. Porter, who, in his "Progress of the Nation" (1846), gives the authority of an inhabitant of Horsham, Sussex, then lately living, for the tradition that at one time sheep or cattle could not be driven to the London market at all from Horsham, owing to the state of the roads, and had to be disposed of in the immediate neighbourhood, so that "under these circumstances a quarter of a fat ox was commonly sold for about fifteen shillings, and the price of mutton throughout the year was only five farthings the pound." In Devonshire the Rev. James Brome, who published in {75}1726 a narrative of "Three Years Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales," found the farmers carrying their corn on horseback, the roads being too narrow to allow of the use of waggons. Altogether the need for improved facilities for inland communication in the interests alike of travellers and of traders was great beyond all question, and there was unlimited scope for the operation of such improvement as was represented by the turnpike system, now coming into vogue. It was, however, not so much the general needs of the country as the rebellion in Scotland in 1745, accompanied by such disasters for the Royalist troops as their defeat at Preston Pans, which had led the Government to pay special attention to the subject of road-making and road-improvement. Between 1726 and 1737 General Wade, employing in summer about 500 soldiers on the work, had constructed in Scotland itself some 250 miles of what were, in point of fact, military roads, being designed as a means of reducing disorder in that country. The communications between Scotland and England still remained, however, very defective, and, though English cavalry and artillery had gone forward bravely enough when the rebellion broke out, they found roads that, apart altogether from any question of fighting on them, were not fit for them even to move upon; so that while the troops from the south were hampered and delayed by the narrow tracks, the ruts and the bogs which impeded their advance, the enemy, more at home in these conditions, had all the advantage.