After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother, pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged £128 14s. 9d. for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged £39 6s. 4d. Robert died in 1820, his brother in 1836.
It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed that might otherwise have disappeared.[513] The object of good breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for £20 apiece, generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the following summer, coarse pasture; the second winter, straw in the foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.[514]
Cattle at this time were classified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Sussex, Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and Alderneys.
Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters, Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, Southdown, Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.[515]
With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787; for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon, 1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and food-crushers.[516] But the great innovation was the threshing machine of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first threshing machine is mentioned in the Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet diameter, moved by a small quantity of water. The first attempts to substitute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was tried,[517] Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,[518] among his inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 Mr. Aitchison, of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by horse—or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine. With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced it.[519] The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and prickly comfrey in 1811.
The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy summer, and in August wheat went up to 108s. a quarter.[520] As usual many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again. The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year, the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions. The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen, it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.[521] In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer was getting 1s. 2d. a day and beer, with extras in harvest[522]; but bacon was 10d. a lb. and wheat 12s. a bushel. However, parish allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes receiving 11s. a week from that source.
In Cumberland the labourer was being paid 10d. to 1s. a day with food, or 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. without; in Hertfordshire, 1s. 6d. a day; in Suffolk, 1s. 4d. a day and beer.
Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of his earnings, the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one case to £21 18s. 4d. In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in rates.
About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known as the 'roundsman system'.[523]
Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of 1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at Smithfield: