Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/477

 AGRICULTURE HEREFORDSHIRE is about the same size as the counties of Cambridge, Nottingham, and Warwick, approximately 40 miles in length and 34 in its greatest breadth, its area being 550,015 acres. Its surface is generally hilly, finely diversified and watered by many rivers and streams, of which the chief are the Wye, Lugg, Teme, Arrow, Frome, Leadon, Dore, Monnow, and Garron. Geologically the whole of it belongs to the Old Red Sandstone formation, and the general character of the soil is a mixture of marl and clay containing much calcareous earth. Towards the western borders the soil is frequently cold, sterile, and of a clayey character, retentive of moisture ; the eastern side of the county is generally a very tenacious stiff clay, and a large portion of the hundred of Wormelow on the south consists of a light sand. The climate is extremely healthy, and varies considerably according to the elevation and exposure, some of the uplands being very bleak. The great mass of the people are engaged in agriculture, manufactures being of little importance. There is very little waste land in Herefordshire, the largest tract lying on the eastern side of the Hatteral Hills, where the steepness of the slopes and the barren soil do not encourage improvement. Thomas Fuller, who died in 1 661, said that Herefordshire 'doth share as deep as any county in the alphabet of our English commodities though exceeding in W for wood, wheat, wool, and water.' Its green orchard alleys made it seem to him a more favoured spot than Pomerania ; the Golden Valley produced wool so long and lustrous in its fibre that there was no need for its flock masters to envy the Tarentine and Apulian. Its wheat, too, was worthy to jostle in pureness with the wheat of Heston in Middlesex, which furnished manchets ' for the kings of England. The industry of Professor Thorold Rogers has fortunately collected for us some statistics of Herefordshire agriculture in the Middle Ages. There seems to be no doubt that from the death of Edward I to the accession of the House of Tudor agriculture in England hardly advanced at all, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary it is not to be supposed that the county of Hereford differed from the rest of the kingdom. The common-field system was practically universal, and a very wasteful system it was ; the land could never be properly ploughed, as the long, narrow strips into which the fields were divided could not be cross-ploughed.^ Owing to the absence of turnips and clover and the scarcity of manure, for there was hardly any wintering of stock, land was fallowed every three years or sometimes two years in three. But fallowing alone could not keep the land in good heart, so that by the end of the 15th century the arable land was becoming worn out. The average crop of wheat was only five or six bushels per acre,' although two and a half bushels of seed was usual, and in 1329 this was selling at 'Leynthale' at from bs. id. to 8^. per quarter, equal to about IOOj. and I20s. of our money. Prices fluctuated enormously, as, of course, foreign importations were slight, and in addition to this the roads were so bad that wheat might be dear in one part of the country, and cheap in others. In 1343, at MalmeshuU, wheat was selling at from 31. fd. to ifS. a quarter, and oats from is. 6d. to 2s. id.^ In 1352 it varied at the same place from 5 s. d. to s. 8i^., whereas oats kept much the same price, 45. to s. Sd. The average price of wheat at this time was $s. lO^d. a bushel, but often just after harvest it was much cheaper, and if the stock was exhausted before the next harvest much dearer. According to the accounts of the Knights Hospitallers' estates published by the Camden Society, arable land in Herefordshire in 1338 was let at from ^.d. to 8d. an acre, about the normal rent of the time, and meadow-land at from 1 2d. to 1 8d., the usual price being 2s. ' Manchets were loaves of the finest wheaten bread. unchanged. 6d. an acre for communal, and 812'. for inclosed was about the average ; the freehold was worth about twelve years' purchase, rising to twenty in the 15 th century. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 89. ^ Walter of Henley says : ' You know on the acre it is necessary to sow at least two bushels, at three times your sowing you ought to have six bushels worth 3/.' Walter of Henlefs Husbandry (Royal Hist. Soc), 17- FoJ" the five years, 1243-8, the average crop of wheat at Combe (Oxon.) was five bushels per acre. 407
 * The average rent of arable land from the 13 th to the beginning of the 1 6th century was practically
 * Thorold Rogers, Hist, ofjgr'x. and Prices, ii, 116.