Rabbits were occasionally kept in large numbers for profit; at Auborne Chase in Wilts, there was a warren of 700 acres surrounded by a wall—a most effective way of preventing escape, but somewhat expensive. In winter time they were fed on hay, and hazel branches from which they ate the bark. They were never allowed to get below 8,000 head, and from these, after deducting losses by poachers, weazles, polecats, foxes, &c., 24,000 were sold annually. These rabbits, owing to the quality of the grass, were famous for the sweetness of their flesh. The proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, began to kill them at Bartholomewtide, Aug. 24, and from then to Michaelmas obtained 9s. a dozen for them delivered free in London; but those from Michaelmas to Christmas realized 10s. 6d. a dozen.

The difference in price at the two periods is accounted for by the fact that their skins were much better in the latter, and the rabbits kept longer when killed; they must also have been larger. A skin before Michaelmas was only worth 1d., but soon after nearly 6d.; and in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair fetched 1s. each.[409]

We have now reached the period when the result of Jethro Tull's labours was given to the world, his Horse-hoeing Husbandry appearing in 1733. It is no exaggeration to say that agriculture owes more to Tull than to any other man; the principles formulated in his famous book revolutionized British agriculture, though we shall see that it took a long time to do it. He has indeed been described as 'the greatest individual improver agriculture ever knew'. He first realized that deep and perfect pulverization is the great secret of vegetable nutrition, and was thus led on to perfect the system of drilling seed wide enough apart to admit of tillage in the intervals, and abandoning the wide ridges in vogue, laid the land into narrow ridges 5 feet or 6 feet wide. He was born at Basildon in Berkshire, heir to a good estate, and was called to the bar in 1699, but on his marriage in the same year settled on the paternal farm of Howberry in Oxfordshire. In his preface to his book he throws a flash of light on country life at a time when the roads were nearly as bad as in the Middle Ages, so that they effectually isolated different parts of England, when he speaks of 'a long confinement within the limits of a lonely farm, in a country where I am a stranger, having debarred me from all conversation'.[410]

He took to agriculture more by necessity than by choice, for he knew too much 'the inconveniency and slavery attending the exorbitant power of husbandry servants', and he further gives this extraordinary character of the farm labourer of his day: ''Tis the most formidable objection against our agriculture that the defection of labourers is such that few gentlemen can keep their land in their own hands, but let them for a little to tenants who can bear to be insulted, assaulted, kicked, cuffed, and Bridewelled, with more patience than gentlemen are endowed with.'[411] Tull wrote just before it became the fashion for gentlemen to go into farming, and laments that the lands of the country were all, or mostly, in the hands of rack-renters, whose supposed interest it was that they should never be improved for fear of fines and increased rents. Gentlemen then knew so little of farming that they were unable to manage their estates. No doubt his scathing remarks helped to initiate the well-known change in this respect, and soon, over all England, gentlemen of education and position were engaged in removing this reproach from their class. The same complaint as to their ignorance of matters connected with their land crops up again during the great French war, but they then had a good excuse, as they were busy fighting the French.

Tull invented his drill about 1701 at Howberry. The first occasion for making it, he says, was that it 'was very difficult to find a man that could sow clover tolerably; they had a habit to throw it once with the hand to two large strides and go twice in each cast; thus, with 9 or 10 lb. of seed to an acre, two-thirds of the ground was unplanted. To remedy this I made a hopper, to be drawn by a boy, that planted an acre sufficiently with 6 lb. of seed; but when I added to this hopper an exceeding light plough that made 6 channels eight inches asunder, into which 2 lb. to an acre being drilled the ground was as well planted. This drill was easily drawn by a man, and sometimes by a boy.'

His invention was largely prompted by his desire to do without the insolent farm servant whom he has described above, and the year after it was invented he certainly had his wish, for they struck in a body and were dismissed: 'it were more easy to teach the beasts of the field than to drive the ploughman out of his way.'

His ideas were largely derived from the mechanism of the organ which, being fond of music, he had mastered in his youth—a rotary mechanism, which is the foundation of all agricultural sowing implements. His first invention may be described as a drill plough to sow wheat and turnip seed in drills three rows at a time, a harrow to cover the seed being attached. Afterwards he invented a turnip drill, so arranged as regards dropping the seed and its subsequent covering with soil that half the seed should come up earlier than the rest, to enable a portion at least to escape the dreaded fly. He was a great believer in doing everything himself, and worked so hard at his drill that he had to go abroad for his health. He was somewhat carried away by his invention, and asserts that the expense of a drilled crop of wheat was one-ninth of that sown in the old way, giving the following figures to prove his assertion:

The Old Way
£s.d.
Seed, 21/2 bushels, at 3s.76
Three ploughings, harrrowing, and sowing160
Weeding20
Rent of preceding fallow10 0
Manure2 10 0
Reaping46
—————
£4100 [412]
=========
The New Way
Seed, 3 pecks23
Tillage40
Drilling6
Weeding6
Uncovering (removing clods fallen on the wheat)2
Brine and lime1
Reaping26
———
100
=====

It should be noted that he has omitted to charge rent for the year in which the crop was grown in both cases.

He considered fallowing and manure unnecessary, and grew without manure 13 successive wheat crops on the same piece of ground, getting better crops than his neighbours who pursued the ordinary course of farming. His three great principles, indeed, were drilling, reduction of seed, and absence of weeds, and he saw that dung was a great carrier of the latter but lacked a due appreciation of its chemical action. Of course, like all improvers, he was met with unlimited opposition, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme annoyance. His health was bad, his troubles with his labourers unending, his son a spendthrift, and he died at his now famous home, Prosperous Farm, near Hungerford, in 1741, having said not long before his death, 'Some, allowed as good judges, have upon a full view and examination of my practice declared their opinion that it would one day become the general husbandry of England.'[413] Scotland was the first to perceive the merits of the system, and it gradually worked southwards into England, but for many years had to fight against ignorance and prejudice, even so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to it.