AGRICULTURE during the first half of the 19th. No doubt farming benefited greatly from the abandonment of the old wasteful system of the common field, but the common field farmer was thereby converted into a hired labourer. . A farm visited by Young, of 200 acres, was rented at ^^loo ; 150 acres were arable, the rest grass; 6 horses were kept, 10 cows, and 160 sheep, and the labour was performed by four 'servants' and two labourers, the servants being paid by the year and boarded in the farm-house, the labourer paid by the day and 'finding' himself. A wagon in Rutland at this time cost ;^ 18, a cart ^7, a plough 25;.,^^ a pair of harrows 251., a roller from 25J. to 50s. Three miles from Casterton the labourer in winter received only jd. a day, yet at Casterton he was paid is., the average wage all the year round in England at this time being from "js. to 75. 6d. a week. In hay-time, however, he got u. a day and board, and in harvest 75. dd. a week and board. For reaping the price was 5j. an acre, which was also paid for hoeing turnips, for mowing spring corn u., and for mowing grass is. T^d. However, this low rate of wages was compensated for by the low price of food, beef, mutton, and veal being ■^d. a lb., butter bd., and cheese 3(f., while for a house and an acre of land the labourer paid only £1 a year. At the end of the i8th century Rutland farms in general were held from year to year or at will, with which the occupiers appeared satisfied, and it is interesting to note that the spread of leases was attributed to the desire of the more avaricious of the landowners to increase their rent-rolls." As a rule there was complete confidence between landlords and tenants, and a tenant at will who entered on a farm as a young man was expected to hand on the holding to his posterity. If leases were used the following is a specimen of the prevailing form about 1786. The tenant did the ordinary repairs of buildings and all the fences, being allowed materials and the liberty of lopping hedgerow timber. He agreed to pay double rent so long as he continued to hold after notice given ; to pay the landlord u. a rood for such hedges and ditches as should not be properly made after three months' notice had been given in writing. He was also bound not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule under a penalty of ;f 20 per acre, nor to plough more than a certain number of acres in any one year under the same penalty, and to forfeit the same sum for every acre that should be ploughed for more than three crops successively without making a clean summer fallow after the third crop. He was also restricted as to the number of acres to be mown in any one year. When he laid down arable land to grass, he was to manure it with 8 quarters of lime to the acre and sow 1 2 lb. of clover seeds and i bushel of rye grass per acre. He was to spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or leave them at the end of the tenancy, being allowed for the hay left. He was also allowed for all clover and rye grass sown in the last year, and for all lime used and fallows made in the same period.^" There were, however, at this date many yeomen still left who cultivated their own estates of from ;^200 to >^500 a year, a class of men who were, unfortunately for England, to dwindle rapidly during the succeeding war with France, and in Rutland have to-day practically disappeared. In 1794 one-third of the county was uninclosed and farmed on the open-field system which e had been in use for centuries, and in this respect it differed little from the rest of England.^^ Thi first great run of inclosures, in the 1 8th century at all events, began about 1760, and for some time there was little improvement in the cultivation of the newly-inclosed fields, but gradually better methods prevailed, with the result that there was more demand for labour, and the rural population increased. About one-third of the land was then subject to tithes, which were usually compounded for, and upon inclosures land was generally allotted in lieu of tithes. Corn was somewhat cheaper in Rutland than in the adjoining counties, chiefly owing, it was said, to the want of water carriage, there being no navigable river or canal in the county, but beef, mutton, and pork were about the same price; and id. a lb. cheaper than in London. In order to relieve the rates and promote industry among the children of the labourers, Mr. Foster, a clergyman of Ryhall, had organized schools of rural industry. By this plan the overseers of each parish were to provide wool, yarn, hemp, and flax, together with spinning wheels and other implements, for all those capable of work, and set them to work. If the children refused to work the overseers complained to the justices, and no person was allowed any relief on account of any child above six years of age who could not knit, nor for any child above nine who could not spin. " At Brandsby in Yorkshire, in 1774, a new plough cost £1 ; Thorold Rogers, j^gric. and Prices, vii (i), 479. In 1758 a new wagon at the same place cost j^l6 ; ibid, vii (2), 473. " Marshall, Rural Econ. of Mid. Cos. i, 16 ; John Crutchley, Gen. View of Agric. of Rut. 22. '" In his ^;,?a; of the Agric. of Rut. 1794, John Crutchley gives some new covenants lately introduced, among them that of only taking one crop of white corn before a fallow, and one providing that a tenant not living in the farm-house should pay an additional rent of j^io a year. " Sixty years before the district was 'principally open,' Marshall, Rural Econ. of Mid. Cos. ii, 225. 243
