Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, and cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at Hawsted, the tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being allowed bushes and stakes for so doing. He was also to bestow on some part of the lands one load of good rotten muck over and above what was made on the farm for every load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry off.[414] In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a penalty of £10 an acre for breaking up pasture; a great increase in the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising on the farm were to be bestowed upon it.
Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were not to count as crops.
The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully looked after, as it had become the custom to sell them to the soap-boilers, who came round to every farm collecting them. This is the earliest mention in a Hawsted lease of rye-grass, clover, and turnips, though clover and turnips had been first cultivated there about 1700, and soon spread.
The winter of 1708-9 was very severe, a great frost lasting from October until the spring; wheat was 81s. 9d. a quarter, and high prices lasted until 1715.[415]
From 1715 to 1765 was an era of good seasons and low prices generally; in that half-century Tooke says there were only five bad seasons. In 1732 prices of corn were very low, wheat being about 24s. a quarter, so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did not pay at all.[416]
At Little Gadsden in Hertfordshire, in that year a fair season, and on enclosed land, the following is the balance sheet for an acre:
| DR. | £ | s. | d. | |||
| Rent | 12 | 0 | ||||
| Dressing (manuring) | 1 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 21/2 bushels of seed | 7 | 6 | ||||
| Ploughing first time | 6 | 0 | ||||
| " twice more | 8 | 0 | ||||
| Harrowing | 6 | |||||
| Reaping and carrying | 6 | 6 | ||||
| Threshing | 3 | 9 | ||||
| ———— | ||||||
| 3 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| ======= | ||||||
| CR. | £ | s. | d. | |||
| 15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as 20 bushels was now about the average) | 2 | 2 | 0 | |||
| Straw | 11 | 6 | ||||
| 2 | 13 | 6 | ||||
| ———— | ||||||
| LOSS | 10 | 9 | ||||
| ======= | ||||||
On barley, worth about £1 a quarter, the loss was 3s. 6d. an acre; on oats, worth 13s. a quarter, however, the profit was 21s.; on beans, 26s. 6d., these being that year exceptionally good and worth 20s. a quarter.[417] Ellis objected to the new mode of drilling wheat because, he said, the rows are more exposed to the violence of the winds, rains, &c., by growing apart, than if close together, when the stalks support each other.[418] This estimate may be compared to that of Tull for the 'old way' of sowing wheat,[419] and to the following estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better price:—
| DR. | £ | s. | d. | |
| Rent, tithe, taxes | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Team, &c. | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 bushels of seed | 10 | 0 | ||
| Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing | 2 | 6 | ||
| Brining | 6 | |||
| Weeding | 1 | 6 | ||
| Reaping and carrying | 9 | 0 | ||
| Threshing and cleaning | 7 | 6 | ||
| Binding straw | 1 | 6 | ||
| ———— | ||||
| £3 | 12 | 6 | [420] | |
| ======= | ||||
| CR. | ||||
| 20 bushels at 5s. | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| 11/2 loads of straw | 1 | 2 | 6 | |
| ———— | ||||
| £6 | 2 | 6 | ||
| ======= | ||||
The profit was thus £2 10s. 0d. an acre, and for barley it was £3 3s. 6d., for oats £1 19s. 10d., for beans £1 13s. 0d.[421]