A HISTORY OF RUTLAND The Board of Agriculture sent round a circular letter in the early part of 1816 to inquire into the distress which had so suddenly arisen, and from the following answer given by Rutland it appears that the county had suffered less than most : — ^ Parish Unoccupied Farms Notices to Quit Rent Reductions Poor Rates Remedies Proposed Ezton .... 5 from 200 to 400 acres each A great number
Increased one- third Lower rent, taxes and revision of poor laws Lyndon None None 15 per cent. Decreased Lower taxes Yet the papers were full of farmers' assignments and arrests, and executions either for rent or taxes were put in force daily, and the farmers who still held up their heads were sunk in apathy and despondency. No permanent improvement was going on ; ' the eye in vain wanders,' wrote a farmer in the county, ' for the view of hollow drainers, or grubbers, or casters of moles and anthills ; the miry bog and the savage mountain must now remain in a state of nature, all are at a stand, the labourer is thrown out of employ, as the farmer has not a shilling to employ him with. If the present prices of corn and stock continue twelve months longer nine-tenths of the remaining farmers must be ruined.' Yet wheat in 1S16 averaged 78;. 6d. a quarter. It was observed that the farms that were retaken were let to men who moved from one farm to another in the hope that another year mi<iht prove more advantageous to sell up in, but these worthies were not prospering. Considering this picture, which is similar to that painted in the returns by most of the answerers, it is hard to understand where all the money made by the farmers in those bouncing years of the war had gone to. In 1 83 1 the land of Rutland was, as now, mostly in grass in the west, and under tillage in the east, the latter being said to be better managed than in Lincolnshire, the barley especially being of a very fine quality.'" The working classes were more comfortable and 'more humanely treated' by the owners and farmers than in many other counties, the Ear! of Winchilsea being especially distinguished for his exertions in this direction ; the cottages which he had built having a kitchen, parlour, dairy, cow- house, and two bedrooms over ; and there were several with small holdings attached of from five to twenty acres. He also encouraged the practice of letting portions of the pasture to labourers, and of taking in their cows at so much per head. Another excellent custom was that whereby the cottagers took small portions of farmers' fields to use as gardens ; for instance, at Oakham a field of 3 acres had been divided into twenty-four gardens let at 5^. each. The Leicestershire and Rutland Agricultural Society had been established in 1806 and met at Melton Mowbray and Oakham alternately, and altogether there was less want of knowledge in this county than in most others. The following were the customs and covenants about the middle of the 19th century, three- fourths of the tenancies then commencing at Lady Day, and the remainder at Michaelmas : — On a Michaelmas holding the incoming tenant paid on the summer fallows for one year's rent, rates, and the acts of husbandry ; also for purchased manures and the hauling of them, and for the hauling and spreading of farm manure. He took to the root crops at a consuming price, paying too for the purchased manure and its carriage. On stubbles prepared for wheat or tares he had to pay the cost of lime used and for the hauling of the same, for the ploughings, hauling and cost of purchased manure, the hauling of home-made manure, and on clover seeds for the seeds and sowing. If the incoming tenant took to the hay, clover, and straw, he paid for it at a consuming price ; if he refused to, which was seldom, the outgoing tenant had the farm premises to convert the straw into manure. On Lady Day holdings, the summer fallows were paid for as in the Michael- mas ones, and the incoming tenant paid for seeds of all sorts which had been sown from which the outgoer had received no benefit. The tenants usually did all the repairs, except to roofs, outside walls and main timbers, the landlord sometimes providing timber in the rough. As to draining, when the tenant found labour only, an allowance was made for four years ; when he found the pipes as well it was made for six years. A quarter of the cost of the linseed and cotton cake con- sumed during the last two years of the tenancy was allowed, and the same proportion for the lime.'* " Jgric. State of the Kingdom (1S16), 260 et seq. ^ Loudon, Encycl. ofAgiic. (ed. 1831), ii;6. " Probably old Lady Day and old IVIichaelmas as now. " Roy. j^gric. Soc. Engl. Joum. (Ser. 2), iv, 155. 246
