ABSTRACT
XCORD ING to some accounts, English agriculture in theeighteenth century was a way of life to which every right-minded townsman must look with nostalgia. According to others, it appears as little more than a battlefield on which whole classes were defeated by an hereditary enemy and virtually extinguished. It is necessary to insist that it was, above all, an industry. It employed more resources than any other. Those who controlled it were no less concerned than iron masters or cotton spinners to maximise their incomes and properties. They were no more, and no less, public spirited than their fellows. The idea (held by some modern as well as contemporary writers-) that they rendered a service greater than that of other industrialists, is as false as the idea that they rendered no service at all. Agriculture had its peculiar features. Its techniques differed from place to place. Of its varied products a large part was consumed on the spot. The esteem that attached to ownership of the soil affected its progress. But generally, like other callings, it was ruled by the forces of the market.
