| Second year, barley: | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, tithe, &c. | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| Three ploughings | 12 | 0 | ||
| Three harrowings | 1 | 0 | ||
| Seed | 8 | 0 | ||
| Sowing | 3 | |||
| Mowing and harvesting | 3 | 0 | ||
| Water furrowing | 6 | |||
| Threshing, @ 1s.a quarter | 5 | 0 | ||
| ———— | ||||
| £2 | 17 | 9 | ||
| ======= | ||||
Third year, clover: | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, &c. | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| Seed | 5 | 0 | ||
| Sowing | 3 | |||
| ———— | ||||
| £1 | 13 | 3 | ||
| ======= | ||||
Fourth year,[452]wheat: | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, &c. | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| One ploughing | 4 | 0 | ||
| Three harrowings | 1 | 0 | ||
| Seed | 10 | 0 | ||
| Sowing | 3 | |||
| Water furrowing | 9 | |||
| Thistling | 1 | 6 | ||
| Reaping and harvesting | 7 | 0 | ||
| Threshing, @ 2s.a quarter | 7 | 0 | ||
| ———— | ||||
| £2 | 19 | 6 | ||
| ======= | ||||
Fifth year, beans: | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, &c. | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| Two ploughings | 8 | 0 | ||
| Seed, 2 bushels | 8 | 0 | ||
| Sowing | 6 | |||
| Twice hand-hoeing | 12 | 0 | ||
| Twice horse-hoeing | 3 | 0 | ||
| Reaping and harvesting | 8 | 0 | ||
| Threshing | 5 | 0 | ||
| ———— | ||||
| £3 | 12 | 6 | ||
| ======= | ||||
Sixth year, oats: | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, &c. | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| Once ploughing | 4 | 0 | ||
| Two harrowings | 8 | |||
| Four bushels of seed | 6 | 0 | ||
| Sowing | 3 | |||
| Mowing and harvesting | 3 | 0 | ||
| Threshing, @ 1s.a quarter | 6 | 0 | ||
| ———— | ||||
| £2 | 7 | 11 | ||
| ======= | ||||
Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low rent; the average profit per acre on 5s. land was then about 8s. 8d., on 20s. land, 29s.
Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on 20 acres of arable in nine years amounted to £88, whereas on grass it was £212, or 9s. 9d. an acre per annum for the former and 23s. for the latter.[453] Yet dairying, at all events, was then on the whole badly managed and unprofitable. The average cow ate 21/2 acres of grass, and the rent of this with labour and other expenses made the cost £5 a year per cow, and its average produce was not worth more than £5 6s. 3d.[454] This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots, cabbages, &c., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs, kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return could be made as much as £4 15s. 0d. per cow.
The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1s. a head, partly derived from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3d. or 4d. per lb.[455]
Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:
Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven pigs in April and eleven in October:
| DR. | £ | s. | d. | CR. | £ | s. | d. | |
| Grains | 10 | 4 | A pig | 2 | 3 | |||
| Cutting a litter | 1 | 6 | A fat hog | 1 | 9 | 0 | ||
| 5 quarters peas | 5 | 2 | 0 | Another, 110 lb. wt. | 1 | 12 | 9 | |
| 10 bushels barley | 1 | 0 | 0 | Another, 116 lb. wt. | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
| Expenses in selling[456] | 11 | 6 | Heads | 5 | 3 | |||
| 10 bushels peas | 1 | 6 | 3 | 3 fat hogs | 6 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1 fat hog | 2 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| 10 young pigs | 4 | 16 | 6 | |||||
| ———— | ———— | |||||||
| £18 | 12 | 9 | ||||||
| 8 | 11 | 7 | ||||||
| ———— | ||||||||
| £8 | 11 | 7 | Profit | £10 | 1 | 2 | ||
| ======== | ======== | |||||||
We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull perhaps again invented it. He practised it upon an extent of ground far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'[457] It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill husbandry was the inferiority of the drills hitherto invented. They were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called, for such it then was—a combination of drill, plough, and harrow—capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills hitherto made were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the horses, and drag them after them; in passing gateways twenty to one they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are still to be seen!
Another defect in drilling was that the drill plough filled up all the water furrows, which, at a time when drainage was often neglected, were deemed of especial importance, and they all had to be opened again.
Further, said the advocates of the old husbandry, it was a question whether all the horse-hoeings, hand-hoeings, and weedings of the new husbandry, though undoubtedly beneficial, really paid. It was very hard to get enough labourers for these operations. With more reason they objected to the principles of discarding manure and sowing a large number of white straw crops in succession, but admitted the new system was admirably adapted for beans, turnips, cabbages, and lucerne.