[252] R.A.S.E.  Journal, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard, Herbal (ed. 1633), p. 232.

[253] About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep fatted on clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers, and that sheep fatten very well on turnips.  Houghton, Collection for Improvement of Husbandry, iv. 142.  This is said to be the first notice of turnips being given to sheep.

[254] R.A.S.E.  Journal, 1896, p. 77.  One of the proofs of the rarity of vegetables among the poorer classes of England, especially in the Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind never included them.

[255] R.A.S.E.  Journal, 1892, p. 19.

[256] Chapple, Review of Risdon’s Survey of Devon (1785), p. 17 n. Victoria County History:  Devonshire, Agriculture.

[257] Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure.  ’Live the commoners do indeed’, he says, ’very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger and ease.  Better do these in Bridewell.  What they get they spend.  And can they make even at the year’s rent?’

[258] Rymer, Foedera (Orig. ed.), xix. 512.

[259] Manydown Manor Rolls, Hampshire Record Society, p. 172.

[260] Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, p. 459.

[261] Houghton, Collections, &c., ii. 448.

[262] Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, v. p. vii.  Cf. p. 139 infra.

[263] Cullum, Hawsted, pp. 196 et seq.  In the Hawsted leases, at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, it is noteworthy that there were, at a time of repeated complaints against laying down land to pasture, clauses against breaking up pasture land.

[264] In 1677 there were complaints of a fall in rents.

[265] Manydown Manor Rolls, Hampshire Record Society, pp. 178 et seq.

[266] Rawl.  A. 170, No. 101.

[267] McPherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 483.

[268] Ibid. ii. 630.

[269] Ibid. iii. 147.  The rental of the lands in England in 1600 was estimated by Davenant at L6,000,000, in 1688 at L14,000,000; and in 1726 by Phillips at L20,000,000.  Ibid. iii. 133.  In 1850, Caird estimated it at L37,412,000.

[270] With what horror would those legislators have contemplated England’s position to-day, when a temporary loss of the command of the sea would probably ruin the country.

[271] 21 Jac. 1, c. 28.

[272] Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (New Series), xix. 116.

[273] Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (New Series), xix. 127.

[274] Ibid. 130.

[275] See article in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (New Series), xix.

[276] Macaulay, History of England, ch. iii.