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. L s. d.

Rent 12 0
Dressing (manuring) 1 0 0
2-1/2 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.  L 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 L1 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. L 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
---------
L3 12 6[420]
=========

CR.
20 bushels at 5s. 5 0 0
1-1/2 loads of straw 1 2 6
---------
L6 2 6
=========

The profit was thus L2 10s. 0d. an acre, and for barley it was L3 3s. 6d., for oats L1 19s. 10d., for beans L1 13s. 0d.[421]

This crop of wheat was not very good, as the average in that district was from 20 to 25 bushels per acre, and Young before this saw crops of 30 bushels per acre growing.  The over frequent use of fallows, which had so long marked agriculture, was in the early half of the eighteenth century beginning to be strongly disapproved of.  Bradley advocated the continuous cultivation of the ground with different kinds of crops, ‘for I find’, he said, ’by experience that if such crops are sown as are full of fibrous roots, such roots greatly help to open the parts of grounds inclining to too much stiffness.’[422]