ABSTRACT
The two upland areas of wold and heath underwent an agricultural revolution in the period between 1740 and 1870. They attracted the particular attention of contemporary writers on agricultural improvement and in consequence there is no shortage of general accounts of the change, written when once it was well under way. The agricultural worker in consequence was well paid and fully employed. Arthur Young had too strong views of his own to make a very conscientious reporter of the general state of agriculture in the country. Fundamentally, this was the cause of the disagreement between Thomas Stone, the first reporter on Lincolnshire for the Board of Agriculture, and Arthur Young, who, without consultation with Stone, and without explanation in print, wrote a second report of his own. In 1836 a witness to the Royal Commission on the state of agriculture declared that the barometer of prosperity on the wolds was the price of barley and wool.
