28. THE 18TH CEN TURY. Between 1700 and 1815 English agri culture changed its whole character. England became a great wheat exporting country and continued so up to 1773. Great agricultural improvements were carried through, stock breeding became scientific, waste land was broken up, large portions of the fens were drained, big farms with enterprising up-to-date farmers became the object of every landlord and the agricultural system which had come down from Anglo-Saxon days, and which still prevailed over large parts of England, was given up. English farming became intensive in character instead of mainly extensive. The social effects of the change involved the disap pearance or degradation of the landowning peasantry or yeoman class. On the other hand it was only by means of the great increase in agricultural produce that England was not starved into submission during the Napoleonic wars. The changes in agriculture of that cen tury meant ultimately nothing more nor less than national independence.
One of the main objects of English policy had been for centuries the encouragement of agriculture. A sufficient food supply raised, at home deprived the enemy of the power of cutting off supplies from abroad. Moreover agriculture was considered the best breeding ground of good soldiers. Wheat also was an excellent commodity for ships to carry, and the encouragement of corn export formed part of the Navigation policy of the realm. The great attention bestowed by successive governments upon agriculture was the most original part of English policy. Her seamanship she copied from Holland, her industrial protection from France i but while every other country aimed at preventing the export of corn so as to have a sufficient food supply, England deliberately stimulated export believing that thereby farm ing would be best encouraged.
This policy reached its most complete ex pression in the Corn Bounty Act (1 Wm. and Mary, c.12) of 1689, by which, when the price of wheat was at or below 48 shillings (and pro protionately for other grains) a bounty was given on export.
The result of this law was to attract capital into farming. Men who sunk money in im
provements were assured of a price which should not fall below 48 shillings and under the stimulus of this certainty a great agricultural revolution began. There grew up gradually a class of capitalist farmers and °spirited land lords') who were willing to carry out experi ments. The result was that by 1770 England not only produced food for a population that had doubled itself, but was the granary of Europe.
One of the great improvements of the 18th century was, for example, the manuring of land, by which Arthur Young calculated that three or four hundred thousand acres of waste were turned into gardens. A revolution in fod der was brought about by the introduction of turnips and clover, while careful attention to grass seeds resulted in good hay on which cattle could be kept in condition in winter. Previous to the introduction of winter roots the majority of the beasts had to be killed in the autumn and salted down, while the remainder declined in weight through sheer starvation. This annual loss was now averted and a supply of fresh meat secured all the year around.
It therefore became worth while to improve the breed of the animals themselves. Bakewell of Coke of Holkham wrought a revolution in English life with their Leicester and Southdown sheep and Devon cattle. Ani mals were now raised primarily for food instead of for their wool or hides, they were ready for the market sooner and the average size of cattle increased considerably. Thus a larger food supply was secured, and the great stock breeders wrought a change the effects of which were as far reaching as those of Watt and Ark wright.
Before however this scientific farming could become general it had to become known. Roads were undeveloped, people in one county could not know what was passing in another, there was no agricultural newspaper — no machinery to make this knowledge common property. Moreover with the inherent conservatism of the agricultural class it needs something more than mere knowledge to make a farmer change his ways.