However, there were many followers of Tull. The Author of Dissertations on Rural Subjects[458] thought the drill plough an excellent invention, as it saved seed and facilitated hoeing; but he said Tull's drill was defective in that the distances between the rows could not be altered, a defect which the writer claims to have remedied. Young's desire for a stronger drill seems to have been soon answered, as the same writer says the barrel drill invented by Du-Hamel and improved by Craik was strong, cheap, and easily managed.
The tendency of the latter half of the century was decidedly in favour of larger farms; it was a bad thing for the small holders, but it was an economic tendency which could not be resisted. The larger farmers had more capital, were more able and ready to execute improvements; they drained their land, others often did not; having sufficient capital they were able both to buy and sell to the best advantage and not sacrifice their produce at a low price to meet the rent, as the small farmer so often did and does. They could pay better wages and so get better men, kept more stock and better, and more efficient implements. They also had a great advantage in being able by their good teams to haul home plenty of purchased manure, which the small farmer often could not do. The small tenants, who had no by-industry, then, as now, had to work and live harder than the ordinary labourer to pay their way.
Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.[459] In his Tour in France Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per acre; who will drain his land at the expense of £2 to £3 an acre; who will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for men to use them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of small farms.' In 1868 the Report of the Commission on the Agriculture of France[460] agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour, difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.
For stocking an arable farm of 70 acres Young considered the following expenditure necessary, the items of which give us interesting information as to prices about 1770:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year | 70 | 0 | 0 |
| Household furniture | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| Wagon | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| Cart with ladders | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Tumbril | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Roller for broad lands (of wood) | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| " narrow " " | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| Cart harness for 4 horses | 8 | 17 | 0 |
| Plough " " | 2 | 16 | 0 |
| 2 ploughs | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| A pair of harrows | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c. | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Dairy furniture | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 sacks | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| 4 horses | 32 | 0 | 0 |
| Wear and tear, and shoeing one year | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @ 2s. 6d. each a week | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 cows | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 sheep | 5 | 10 | 0 |
| One sow | 15 | 0 | |
| One servant's board and wages for one year | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| A labourer's wages for one year | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11s. 6d. | 24 | 3 | 0 |
| Harvest labour | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| ————— | |||
| £326 | 11 | 0 | |
| ========= | |||
Or nearly £5 an acre.
About the same date the Complete English Farmer reckoned that the occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to have a capital of £1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses and maintaining his family, he could put by £50 a year; 'but this capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'[461]
The controversy of horses versus oxen for working purposes was still raging, and Young favoured the use of oxen; for the food of horses cost more, so did their harness and their shoeing, they are much more liable to disease, and oxen when done with could be sold for beef. One stout lad, moreover, could attend to 8 or 10 oxen, for all he had to do was to put their fodder in the racks and clean the shed; no rubbing, no currying or dressing being necessary. No beasts fattened better than oxen that had been worked. A yoke of oxen would plough as much as a pair of horses and carry a deeper and truer furrow, while they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &c. William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.
Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of the latter was £50 against £25 for the former.[462]
Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one. 'I never yet knew', he says, 'one instance of any poor man's working diligently while young and in health to escape coming to the parish when ill or old.' This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been others like George Barwell, whom Marshall tells of in his Rural Economy of the Midlands, who had brought up a family of five or six sons and daughters on a wage of 5s. to 7s. a week, and after they were out in the world saved enough to support him in his old age. The majority, however, long before the crushing times of the French War, seem to have been thoroughly demoralized by indiscriminate parish relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in sickness and old age. Cullum[463] a few years later, remarks on the poor demanding assistance without the scruple and delicacy they used to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then was very expensive, 8s. or 10s. a lb. being an ordinary price, so that the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have worse effects than the immoderate use of spirits. The consumption of it was largely caused by the deficiency of the milk supply, owing to the decrease of small farms; the large farmers did not retail such small commodities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so that the poor often went without.[464]