ENGLAND. 111 the sixteenth century agricul ture in England became more profitable, inelos ures were made, and the rights of common were greatly restricted. Hops were introduced from Holland. Turned from the former wool expor tation, the farmers began to raise wheat in large quantities to he sent out of the country. A law in the middle of the century practically pre vented grain exportation and turned wheat lands into pasturage. The resulting high price of food and the destitution on the part of labor ers brought another reaction, and a replowing of grazing lands. The sixteenth century saw the end of the villeinage. In 1595, laborers without food during the summer months worked six days for a bushel of wheat, four days for a bushel of rye, and three and one-half days for a bushel of barley. Gardening, greatly neglected in the first part of the seventeenth century, received due attention in the latter part. Deep drainage, too, began to be talked about. From the middle of the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, Eng land looked to Flanders for the perfection of careful tillage. From the Flanders of the seven teenth century Sir Riehard Weston brought tur nips and red clover, and Arthur Young afterward called him a greater benefaetor than Newton. By the end of the century turnips and clover were extensively cultivated in alternation with wheat. The cultivation of grasses was begun in this century with the introduction of peren nial rye grass. White clover was introduced in 1700, and timothy and orchard grass came to England from America about 1760. The eight eenth century saw revolutions in English farming. One came when Lord Townsend estab lished the Norfolk system. Under this system of first, wheat; second, turnips; third, barley; fourth, clover and grass, one-half of the land was constantly under grain crops and the other under cattle-grazing. Large numbers of sheep and cattle were fattened on the turnips, and the consumption of roots on the land increased the yield of the barley. The Norfolk system was a success from the beginning. The rental of certain farms increased fivefold, and farmers in special cases made handsome fortunes. Susceptible of ninny modifications, it has had much to do with the improved agriculture of England. Beans, peas, and vetches were generally grown, often in mixtures with wheat or oats. Hemp was grown for rope-making. The common vegetables were onions, leeks. mustard, and peas, and the fruits were apples, 1,i-rapes, and plums.
Another revolution came from the breeding ex periments of Bake•ell, commenced in 1750. To mention a single point, it had taken three or four years to prepare sheep for the market; those Ir•ed by llakewell were prepared for the market in two years. Besides making a reputation and a fortune for himself, lie made for others a way since followed in breeding. Jethro Tull, whose book on Horse-hoeing Husbandry appeared in 1731, was almost in touch with the methods of the nineteenth century. Ms theory was that seeds should he sowed in drills, and the spaces between the drills kept thoroughly cultivated.
Ile invented a drill and a horse-hoe. He did not succeed in obtaining a large crop, but successful modifications of the method have since been made.
Nonni AMERICA. The white colonists of North America had much to discourage them as agri culturists; in New England they had the addi tional drawbacks of long winters and a rocky soil. The colonists in Virginia found both In dian corn and tobacco, the latter fitted to become an article of export. The New England settlers brought with them English modes of farming. From the Indians they learned how to raise corn (maize), breaking the soil with a hoe and manuring with fish. Corn was the great product to be depended upon, although other grains were cultivated, and cattle and sheep increased slowly, fed first upon the native grass, then upon timothy specially fitted for New England soil.
Potatoes began to be raised in the first part of the eighteenth century. The southern colonists, more favored by nature, made less actual prog ress than those of the North. Even as late as 1790, as we learn from McMaster's History of the American People, little progress was made. In New England and New York, as well as far ther south, barns were small, implements rude, and carts more common than wagons. In Georgia the hoe was more often used than the plow; in Virginia the poor whites thrashed ' their grain by driving their horses over it. Throughout the South it was the common prae dee to grow crops without rotation, and in gen eral manure was thrown away. A little later came the invention of the cotton gin and the be ginning of the reign of cotton, with a demand for fresh fields and a disregard of careful tillage. Early in the century the importation of the Spanish merino sheep changed the farming of the North and greatly increased the production of wool.