ABSTRACT
It will be remembered that great agricultural changes had taken place since Henry III.’s reign. For a century or so after his death (1272) the landowner was also a cultivator, living upon his land and owning a large amount of capital in the form of stock, which he let out under the stock and land lease system. 1 But after the Great Plague (1348) this method of cultivation by capitalist landowners largely ceased, except in the case of sheep-farming; the landowner became generally a mere rent receiver; and agriculture consequently suffered to some extent. Marling, for instance, fell into disuse, and the breed of sheep, it is said, deteriorated somewhat. 2 The great feature of the change was the transformation of large tracts of arable land into pasture for sheep, and the growth of enclosures for the sake of the same animal. This process, however, seems to have ceased to some extent about the last decade of the sixteenth century, 3 and enclosures were afterwards made, as we shall see, for another reason. The landlords, meanwhile, rapidly proceeded to raise their rents, till, in the sixteenth century, extortionate renting became so common that Bishop Latimer, 4 and Fitzherbert, the author of the useful work on surveying, 1 complained about it both in sermons and other writings. For all these reasons English agriculture did not improve very materially between the days of Henry III. and of Elizabeth. But in this queen’s reign, as we saw, several improvements were made under the influence of foreign refugees. For the inhabitants of the Low Countries and Holland have been our pioneers not only in commerce and finance, but in agriculture also. 2 It was these people who now introduced into England the cultivation of winter roots 3 (the want of which, it will be remembered, greatly embarrassed the English farmer in the mediaeval winter), and in the eighteenth century that of artificial grasses. 4 The introduction of hops also was of great importance. 5
