Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/480

 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE century arable land was let at an average of $s. 6d. per acre, grass land at 8s. 6d. — an enormous increase since the preceding century. The close of the i8th century witnessed the great agricultural revolution caused by the necessity of supplying with food the large manufacturing towns which had sprung up ; wastes were reclaimed, commons partitioned, farms grew larger, leases longer, and agriculture more scientific ; it was the era of Bakewell, Colling, Young, Marshall, and Coke of Holkham. The following are the particulars of a farm of 500 acres of light land in the northern part of the county in 1794 : — Crops Stock Wheat Barley • 40 acres 4° .' Sheep .... Stall fed cattle. 400 20 Peas. 40 .. Milk Cows •7 Turnips Oats. 30 „ 30 >. Calves reared Three or four brood mares " . 12 Clover . 40 .. Pigs, &c In all 220 acres were in tillage and 280 in hay, pasture, orchards and hop-yards, the rotation on the tillage being — (i) wheat ; (2) barley or oats, with seeds ; (3) clover ; (4) fallow and turnips; (5) barley or oats and seeds ; (6) clover. On clay-lands the rotation was — (i) peas on clover ley ; (2) wheat ; (3) a fallow if the land was in bad heart, but if in good, oats or peas, then a fallow. But the rotation varied much in different parts of the county. Turnips at this date, not long introduced into the county, were not hoed, yet a good crop generally came, accompanied, however, by a large crop of weeds, to remedy which a contemporary writer suggests that the landowners should offer prizes for the best crops of hoed turnips. The indolence of Herefordshire farmers at the end of the 18th century is severely commented on by one writer ; he declares that many of the lands were half ploughed, and that weeds, ' those overseers to watch and punish the sluggard,' were rampant. However, the winter feeding of cattle, which must have greatly increased after the introduction of the turnip, was well conducted, their stalls were good and their food consisted of turnips, hay, corn, and ' cakes ' made from the refuse of linseed ; the corn consisting of barley or beans ground and given dry. Owing to the high price of cake, linseed boiled into a jelly and mixed with flour, bran, or chaff had been used. The waste lands of the county in 1794 were estimated at 20,000 acres, half of which were in the district adjoining Brecon and Radnor, the largest extent lying at the foot of the Black Mountain, above the Golden Valley, whence in consequence more felons came than from any other part. The old open common-fields still prevailed over a great part of the best lands in the county, and produced about 50 per cent, less than the inclosed lands, besides employing far less labour. In the same year the wages of agricultural labourers in Herefordshire were 6s. a week and a gallon of drink in summer ; 5;. a week and three quarts of drink in winter, and in harvest i^d. a day with meat and drink. Yet the average wages in England at this date were loj. a week.^^ If hired by the year and boarded, men earned from six to nine guineas and women from three to four guineas. To plant a hedge and dig the ditch cost from 6d. to lod. a perch of 7 yds., according to the depth of the ditch, and to lay old hedges ^d. to 6d. a perch. Coppice wood was very profitable, selling at from £12 to ;^22 per acre of from twelve to fourteen years' growth, a better return than that of most of the land in the county. Not only was there a great demand for hop-poles, but a large quantity of coppice wood was sent to Bristol and other markets for making hoops. The price of hop-poles was from los. to 15^. a hundred in the wood, their average length being from 15 ft. to 18 ft., though for such hops as the ' Farnham white ' and the ' Kentish grape ' poles of 22 ft. were used. At the commencement of the 19th century the greatest estates in Herefordshire belonged to the Governors of Guy's Hospital, the Duke of Norfolk (acquired by marriage with the heiress of the Scudamores of Holme Lacy), the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Essex, Sir George Cornwall, Mr. R. P. Knight, and Mr. Somerset Davies." These estates were divided, much as they are to-day, into farms averaging from 200 to 400 acres each. Some of the smaller estates were occupied by their owners ; those for instance, of Mr. Charles Bodenham ofRotherwas, Mr. T. A. Knight of Elton, Mr. James Phillips of Bringwyn, Mr. John Kedward of Westhide, and Mr. John Apperly of Withington, and they varied from ^^400 to ;^i,ooo a year in value, were cultivated and managed well, and were used to promote the best interests of practical agriculture. But, unfortunately, there had been in recent years a diminution in the number of farming pro- prietors — one of the most solid classes of the community. At this date the tenure of gavelkind still occasionally prevailed in the hundred of Archenfield, and that of borough-english in the manor " Fieai of the Agric. of theco. ofHeref by John Clark, for the Bd. of Agric. 1794. '° Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, chap, xviii. " Gen. View of the Agric. ofHerefs. by John Duncumb (1805), drawn up for the Bd. of Agric. 4.10