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 of that progress. The passing of some 3500 enclosure bills, affecting between 5 and 5 million acres, during the reign of George III., before which the whole number was between 200 and 250, shows how rapidly the break-up of the common-field husbandry and the cultivation of new land now proceeded. The disastrous American War for a time interfered with the national prosperity; but with the return of peace in 1783 the cultivation of the country made more rapid progress. The quarter of a century immediately following 1760 is memorable for the introduction of various important improvements. It was during this period that the genius of Robert Bakewell produced an extraordinary change in the character of our more important breeds of live stock, more especially by the perfecting of a new race of sheep—the well-known Leicesters. Bakewell’s fame as a breeder was for a time enhanced by the improvement which he effected on the Long-horned cattle, then the prevailing breed of the midland counties of England. These, however, were ere long rivalled and afterwards superseded by the Shorthorn or Durham breed, which the brothers Charles and Robert Colling obtained from the useful race of cattle that had long existed in the valley of the Tees, by applying to them the principle of breeding which Bakewell had already established. To this period also belong George and Matthew Culley—the former a pupil of Bakewell—who left their paternal property on the bank of the Tees and settled on the Northumbrian side of the Tweed, bringing with them the valuable breeds of live stock and improved husbandry of their native district. The improvements introduced by these energetic and skilful farmers spread rapidly, and exerted a most beneficial influence upon the border counties.

From 1784 to 1795 improvements advanced with steady steps. This period was distinguished for the adoption and working out of ascertained improvements. Small’s swing plough and Andrew Meikle’s threshing-machine, although invented some years before this, were now perfected and brought into general use, to the great furtherance of agriculture. Two important additions were about this time made to the field crops, viz. the Swedish turnip and potato oat. The latter was accidentally discovered in 1788, and both soon came into general cultivation. In the same year Merino sheep were introduced by George III., who was a zealous farmer. For a time this breed attracted much attention, and sanguine expectations were entertained that it would prove of national importance. Its unfitness for the production of mutton, and increasing supplies of fine clothing wool from other countries, soon led to its total rejection.

In Scotland the opening up of the country by the construction of practicable roads, and the enclosing and subdividing of farms by hedge and ditch, was now in active progress. The former admitted of the general use of wheel-carriages, of the ready conveyance of produce to markets, and in particular of the extended use of lime, the application of which was immediately followed by a great increase of produce. The latter, besides its more obvious advantages, speedily freed large tracts of country from stagnant water and their inhabitants from ague, and prepared the way for the underground draining which soon after began to be practised. Dawson of Frogden in Roxburghshire is believed to have been the first who grew turnips as a field crop to any extent. It is on record that as early as 1764 he had 100 acres of drilled turnips on his farm in one year. An Act passed in 1770, which relaxed the rigour of strict entails and afforded power to landlords to grant leases and otherwise improve their estates, had a beneficial effect on Scottish agriculture.

The husbandry of the country was thus steadily improving, when suddenly the whole of Europe became involved in the wars of the French Revolution. In 1795, under the joint operation of a deficient harvest and the diminution in foreign supplies of grain owing to outbreak of war, the price of wheat, which, for the twenty preceding years, had been under 50s. a quarter, suddenly rose to 81s. 6d., and in the following year reached 96s. In 1797 the fear of foreign invasion led to a panic and run upon the banks, in which emergency the Bank Restriction Act, suspending cash payment, was passed, and ushered in a system of unlimited credit transactions. Under the unnatural stimulus of these extraordinary events, every branch of industry extended with unexampled rapidity. But in nothing was this so apparent as in agriculture; the high prices of produce holding out a great inducement to improve lands then arable, to reclaim others that had previously lain waste, and to bring much pasture-land under the plough. Nor did this increased tillage interfere with the increase of live stock, as the green crops of the alternate husbandry more than compensated for the diminished pasturage. This extraordinary state of matters lasted from 1795 to 1814, the prices of produce even increasing towards the close of that period. The average price of wheat for the whole period was 89s. 7d. per quarter; but for the last five years it was 107s., and in 1812 it reached 126s. 6d. The agriculture of Great Britain, as a whole, advanced with rapid strides during this period; but nowhere was the change so great as in Scotland. Indeed, its progress there, during these twenty years, is probably without parallel in the history of any other country. This is accounted for by a concurrence of circumstances. Previous to this period the husbandry of Scotland was still in a backward state as compared with the best districts of England, where many practices, only of recent introduction in the north, had been in general use for generations. This disparity made the subsequent contrast the more striking. The land in Scotland was now, with trifling exceptions, let on leases for terms varying from twenty to thirty years, and in farms of sufficient size to employ at the least two or three ploughs. The unlimited issues of government paper and the security afforded by these leases induced the Scottish banks to afford every facility to landlords and tenants to embark capital in the improvement of the land. The substantial education supplied by the parish schools, of which nearly the whole population could then avail themselves, had diffused through all ranks such a measure of intelligence as enabled them promptly to discern and skilfully and energetically to take advantage of this spring-tide of prosperity, and to profit by the agricultural information now plentifully furnished by means of the Bath and West of England Society, established in 1777; the Highland Society, instituted in 1784; and the National Board of Agriculture, in 1793.

The restoration of peace to Europe, and the re-enactment of the Corn Laws in 1815, mark the beginning of another era in the history of agriculture. The sudden return to peace-prices was followed by a time of severe depression, low wages, diminished rents and bad farming. The fall in prices was aggravated, first by the unpropitious weather and deficient harvest of the years 1816, 1817, and still more by the passing in 1819 of the bill restoring cash payments, which, coming into operation in 1821, caused serious embarrassment to all persons who had entered into engagements at a depreciated currency, which had now to be met with the lower prices of an enhanced one. The frequency of select-committees and commissions, which sat in 1814, 1821 and 1822, 1833 and 1836, testifies to the gravity of the crisis. The years 1830–1833 are especially memorable for a disastrous outbreak of sheep-rot and for agrarian outrages, caused partly by the dislike of the labourers to the introduction of agricultural machines.

During this period of depression, which lasted till the ’forties, want of confidence prevented any general improvement in agricultural methods. At the same time, certain developments destined to exercise considerable influence in later times are to be noted. Before the close of the 18th century, and during the first quarter of the 19th, a good deal had been done in the way of draining the land, either by open ditches or by James Elkington’s system of deep covered drains. In 1834 James Smith of Deanston promulgated his system of thorough draining and deep ploughing, the adoption of which immeasurably improved the clay lands of the country. The early years of the reign of Queen Victoria witnessed the strengthening of the union between agriculture and chemistry. The Board of Agriculture in 1803 had commissioned Sir Humphry Davy to deliver a course of lectures on the connexion of chemistry with vegetable physiology. In 1840 the appearance of Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology by Justus von Liebig set