Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of high prices and protection.[558] One may naturally ask, if much money had been made by farmers during these years, where had it all gone to that they were reduced at the first breath of adversity to such straits? Some allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling because prices had come back to their natural level after an unnatural inflation.[559] Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of hemp grown in Shropshire.[560] In that county there was a small plot of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled him to pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10 perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of cloth, worth generally about 3s. an ell. Thus a good crop on 10 perches of land brought in L4 10s. 0d., half of which was nett profit. The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there was the sooner it was ready to take off the grass. When the rind peeled easily from the woody part, it was, on a dry day, taken into the house, and when harvest was over well dried in fine weather and dressed, being then fit for the tow dresser, who prepared it for spinning. After the crop of hemp the land was sown with turnips, a valuable resource for the winter. Since 1815 little hemp or flax has been grown in England[561]; in 1907 there were, according to the Agricultural Returns, 355 acres of flax grown in England, and hemp was not mentioned. FOOTNOTES: [504] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 1, and 1898, p. 1. [505] _Autobiography_, p. 242. [506] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 18. [507] 'Had his industry been under the direction of a better judgement, he would have been an admirable president.'--Young, _Autobiography_, p. 316. [508] _The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands_, 1795, estimated wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221.