A Short History of English Agriculture

by W. H. R. Curtler

The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened neighbours like beings of another order[480]; in their personal labour they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very prosperous time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved. Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and modern.[481] As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers, Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for one of these new-created farmers to spend £10 or £12, at one entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters, his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his family.

Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5 feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out. He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he obtained the vote of £1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his system. After the publication of the report his system was followed generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use to his country.

Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments in breeding.[484] He scorned the old idea that the blood must be constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a greater tendency to fatten; (2) permissible in-breeding versus perpetual crossing with strange breeds. He took immense pains in selecting the best animals to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum of skeletons and pickled specimens for the comparison of one generation with another, and he conducted careful post-mortem examinations on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester breed of sheep,[485] which in half a century spread over every part of the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England 2 lb. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were divided into two main classes: (1) short-woolled or field sheep, fed in the open fields; (2) long-woolled or pasture sheep, fed in enclosures. That they were not at a very high state of perfection may be gathered from this description of the chief variety of the latter, the 'Warwickshire' breed: 'his frame large and loose, his bones heavy, his legs long and thick, his chine as well as his rump as sharp as a hatchet, his skin rattling on his ribs like a skeleton covered with parchments.' The origin of the new Leicester sheep is uncertain, but apparently the old Lincoln breed was the basis of it, though this, like other large breeds of English sheep, was itself an introduction of the last half century. The new sheep was described as having a clean head, straight broad flat back, barrel-like body, fine small eyes, thin feet, mutton fat, fine-grained and of good flavour, wool 8 lb. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30 lb. a quarter.

By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he made £3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him 1,200 guineas in one year.

One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially assisted. At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester' and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time and, afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s. while those of the old were 16s.

The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse, flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland, and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny' out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted, large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4 acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of cattle might be produced.

He died in 1795, and apparently did not keep what he made, owing largely to his boundless hospitality, which had entertained Russian princes, German royal dukes, English peers, and travellers from all countries. His breed of cattle has completely disappeared, unless traces survive in the lately resuscitated longhorn breed, but his principles are still acted upon, viz. the correlation of form, and the practice of consanguineous breeding under certain conditions.

Bakewell's earliest pupil was George Culley, who devoted himself to improving the breed of cattle, and became one of the most famous agriculturists at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture owes much was John Ellman of Glynde, born in 1753, who by careful selection firmly established the reputation of the Southdown sheep which had previously been hardly recognized. He was one of the founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1793, which helped materially to improve the live stock of the country.

The relations between landlord and tenant, judging from the accounts of contemporary writers, were generally good. Leases were less frequent than agreements voidable by six months' notice on either side, and when there was a tenancy-at-will the tenant who entered as a young man was often expected to hand on the holding to his posterity, and therefore executed improvements at his own cost, so complete was the trust between landlord and tenant. Tenants then did much that they would refuse to do to-day, as the following lease, common in the Midlands in 1786, shows[488]:

Tenant agrees to take, &c., and to pay the stipulated rent within forty days, without any deduction for taxes, and double rent so long as he continues to hold after notice given.
To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.
To repair gates and fences.
When required, to cut and plash the hedges, and make the ditches 3 feet by 2 feet, or pay or cause to be paid to the landlord 1s. per rood for such as shall not be done after three months' notice has been given in writing.
Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule, 'under £20 an acre.'
Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty.
To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed for any longer time than three crops successively, without making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third crop.
And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one year.
At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow the same with 12 lb. of clover seeds, and one bushel of rye-grass per acre.
Shall spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or leave them at the end of the term.
Tenant on quitting to be allowed for hay left on the premises, for clover and rye-grass sown in the last year, and for all fallows made within that time.'[489]