Produced by Million Book Project, Juliet Sutherland, Tricia Gilbert and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE BY W.H.R. CURTLER OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1909 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE PREFACE 'A husbandman', said Markham, 'is the master of the earth, turning barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations, arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and industrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy?' And he is confirmed by Young: 'Agriculture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every other art, business, and profession, and it has therefore been the ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in England, there is no history covering the whole period. It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very useful information. As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often been ably described, I have devoted the greater part of this work to the agricultural history of the subsequent period, especially the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. W.H.R. CURTLER. _May 22, 1909._ CONTENTS CHAPTER I Communistic Farming.--Growth of the Manor.--Early Prices.--The Organization and Agriculture of the Manor CHAPTER II The Thirteenth Century.--The Manor at its Zenith, with Seeds of Decay already visible.--Walter of Henley CHAPTER III The Fourteenth Century.--Decline of Agriculture.--The Black Death.-- Statute of Labourers CHAPTER IV How the Classes connected with the Land lived in the Middle Ages CHAPTER V The Break-up of the Manor.--Spread of Leases.--The Peasants' Revolt.--Further Attempts to regulate Wages.--A Harvest Home.--Beginning of the Corn Laws.--Some Surrey Manors CHAPTER VI 1400-1540. The so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer' in a Period of General Distress CHAPTER VII Enclosure CHAPTER VIII Fitzherbert.--The Regulation of Hours and Wages CHAPTER IX 1540-1600. Progress at last--Hop-growing.--Progress of Enclosure.-- Harrison's _Description_ CHAPTER X 1540-1600. Live Stock.--Flax.--Saffron.--The Potato.--The Assessment of Wages CHAPTER XI 1600-1700. Clover and Turnips.--Great Rise in Prices.--More Enclosure.--A Farming Calendar CHAPTER XII The Great Agricultural Writers of the Seventeenth Century.--Fruit-growing. --A Seventeenth-century Orchard CHAPTER XIII