CHAPTER XVI

1765-1793

ARTHUR YOUNG.—­CROPS AND THEIR COST.—­THE LABOURERS’ WAGES AND DIET.—­THE PROSPERITY OF FARMERS.—­THE COUNTRY SQUIRE.—­ELKINGTON.—­BAKEWELL.—­THE ROADS.—­COKE OF HOLKHAM.

The history of English agriculture in the latter half of the eighteenth century has been so well described by Arthur Young that any account of it at that time must largely be an epitome of his writings.  The greatest of English writers on agriculture was born in 1741, and began farming early; but, as he confesses himself, was a complete failure.  When he was twenty-six he took a farm of 300 acres at Samford Hall in Essex, and after five years of it paid a farmer L100 to take it off his hands, who thereupon made a fortune out of it.  He had already begun writing on agriculture, and it must be confessed that he began to advise people concerning the art of agriculture on a very limited experience.  It paid him, however, much better than farming, for between 1766 and 1775 he realized L3,000 on his works, among which were The Farmer’s Letters, The Southern, Northern, and Eastern Tours.  These are his qualifications for writing on agriculture, from his own pen:  ‘I have been a farmer these many years’ (he was not yet thirty), ’and that not in a single field or two but upon a tract of near 300 acres most part of the time.  I have cultivated on various soils most of the vegetables common in England and many never introduced into field husbandry.  I have always kept a minute register of my business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.’[440] It is said that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he failed utterly in small economies.  He was also far too vivacious and fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer.  At the same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into the principles of agriculture.  He was indefatigable in inquiries, researches, and experiments; and the best proof of the value of his works is that they were translated into Russian, German, and French.  He tells us in the preface to Rural Economy that his constant employment for the previous seven years, ’when out of my fields, has been registering experiments.’  His pet aversions were absentee landlords, obsolete methods of cultivation, wastes and commons, and small holdings (though towards the end of his life he changed his opinion as to the last); and the following, according to him, were the especially needed improvements of the time:—­

The knowledge of good rotations of crops so as to do away with fallows, which was to be effected by the general use of turnips, beans, peas, tares, clover, &c., as preparation for white corn; covered drains; marling, chalking, and claying; irrigation of meadows; cultivation of carrots, cabbages, potatoes, sainfoin, and lucerne; ploughing, &c., with as few cattle as possible; the use of harness for oxen; cultivation of madden liquorice, hemp, and flax where suitable.[441] Above all, the cultivation of waste lands, which he was to live to see so largely effected.