IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.—LIVE STOCK
AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700 [754]
PREFACE
'A husbandman', said Markham, 'is the master of the earth, turning barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations, arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and industrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy?' And he is confirmed by Young: 'Agriculture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every other art, business, and profession, and it has therefore been the ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in England, there is no history covering the whole period.
It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very useful information.
As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often been ably described, I have devoted the greater part of this work to the agricultural history of the subsequent period, especially the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
W.H.R. CURTLER.
May 22, 1909.
LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
1086. Domesday inquest, most cultivated land in tillage. Annual value of land about 2d. an acre.
1216–72. Henry III. Assize of Bread and Ale.
1272–1307. Edward I. General progress. Walter of Henley.
1307. Edward II. Decline.
1315. Great famine.
1337. Export of wool prohibited.
1348–9. Black Death. Heavy blow to manorial system. Many demesne lands let, and much land laid down to grass.
1351. Statute of Labourers.
1360. Export of corn forbidden.
1381. Villeins' revolt.
1393. Richard II allows export of corn under certain conditions.
1463. Import of wheat under 6s. 8d. prohibited. End of fifteenth century. Increase of enclosure.
1523. Fitzherbert's Surveying and Husbandry.
1540. General rise in prices and rents begins.
1549. Kett's rebellion. The last attempt of the English peasant to obtain redress by force.
1586. Potatoes introduced.
1601. Poor Law Act of Elizabeth.
1645. Turnips and clover introduced as field crops.
1662. Statute of Parochial Settlement.
1664. Importation of cattle, sheep, and swine forbidden.
1688. Bounty of 5s. per quarter on export of wheat, and high duty on import.
1733. Tull publishes his Horse-hoeing Husbandry.
1739. Great sheep-rot.
1750. Exports of corn reached their maximum.
1760. Bakewell began experimenting.
1760 (about). Industrial and agrarian revolution, and great increase of enclosure.
1764. Elkington's new drainage system.
1773. Wheat allowed to be imported at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter when over 48s.
1777. Bath and West of England Society established, the first in England.
1789. England definitely becomes a corn-importing country.
1793. Board of Agriculture established.
1795. Speenhamland Act. About same date swedes first grown.
1815. Duty on wheat reached its maximum.
1815–35. Agricultural distress.
1825. Export of wool allowed.
1835. Smith of Deanston, the father of modern drainage.
1838. Foundation of Royal Agricultural Society.
1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws.
1855–75. Great agricultural prosperity.
1875. English agriculture feels the full effect of unrestricted competition with disastrous results.
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