which noble and aristocratic Rome placed upon her citizen farmers while the nation was shaping itself. "She did not exactly desire their destruction, but allowed it to run its course, and so desolation advanced with gigantic steps over the flourishing land of Italy, where countless numbers of free men had lately rejoiced in well earned prosperity."

CHAPTER IV.

AGRICULTURE IN MODERN EUROPE.

GERMANY AND ENGLAND-RANKS-FOLKS LAND AND RENTS-DEGRADATION OF THE BRITISH LABORER-ALLOWANCE OF FOOD-ELEVATION OF THE MECHANICAL CLASS -PROPORTION OF LAND OWNERS TO POPULATION-VARIATIONS IN CONDITIONWAGES OF LABORERS-HOW ENGLAND IS FED-SCOTLAND A WHEAT GROWING COUNTRY-AMELIORATION OF CLIMATE THROUGH AGRICULTURE-PEDIGREE CATFLE AND SHEEP FRANCE-SMALL FARMING AND POPULATION-GREAT PRODUCTION OF WHEAT-THE LATE WAR-HOLLAND AND THE LOW COUNTRIES—A MODEL FOR CALIFORNIA-DEEP TILLAGE-DIVERSITY OF CROPS-USE OF MACHINERY-NIGHT SOIL AND MANURES-ROTATION-MODERN GERMANY-BEET CULTURE-MAIZE CULTURE IN AUSTRIA-RUSSIA OUR RIVAL IN WHEAT-CON

CLUSION.

THE orderly development of agriculture among the Germans was retarded by the military spirit which distinguished them, and by a policy exactly the reverse of that pursued by the Romans. The Germans returned the lands to the people they conquered, on condition of receiving military assistance, and required of their tributaries that one half of the population should alternately fight and till the soil. The feudal system arose in their dislike of agricultural pursuits, and was entirely subversive of the freehold or allodial rights essential to their successful prosecution; and although these rights were preserved in some parts of Germany and France, the tendency to vassalage was almost irresistible. Indeed, there was no other security in those distracted times, either for life or property, and the oath of fealty exacted from the peasant by the lord, was required of the lord himself to the next higher in authority, and so on until it rested at the throne; thus diminishing in all classes the sense of degradation.

In the long procession of nobility, first came the Earls Palatine, then simple Earls, then Companions in Germany, corresponding to the Thanes of England, then the Ceorls or tenants,

DEGRADATION OF THE BRITISH LABORER.

39

and lastly the slaves or villains who tilled the soil. These aristocratic distinctions were engrafted upon Great Britain, with other Teutonic customs, during the Saxon ascendency.

acres.

Agriculture was introduced into Britain by the Gauls, one hundred years before the Roman invasion. The division of land followed the Roman custom, i. e., it was divided into "hides," a hide being about as much as could be cultivated with a single plow, or from sixty to one hundred and twenty No man was allowed to guide a plow who could not construct one. To reclaim land gave the use of it for five years. Just at this period the Saxon distinction between "folks land," or the property belonging to the State and the people at large, and bocland, or private property, begins distinctly to appear, as also the system of rentals. According to the law of Ina, king of the West Saxons in the eighth century, a hide of plow land paid the following rent, viz: Ten casks of honey; three hundred loaves of bread; twelve casks of strong ale; thirty casks of small ale; two oxen; ten wedders; ten geese; twenty hens; ten cheeses; one cask of butter; five salmon; twenty loads of forage, and one hundred eels.

In the time of Alfred the Great, we hear complaints that arable lands were exhausted of their natural fertility, and three fourths of that which was susceptible of cultivation was devoted to pasturage.

A

The English farmer earned his black and bitter bread during the Middle Ages, known as a "churl" or hind, with little motive for self-improvement or that of his lands. The plowman, shepherd and swineherd belonged to the soil, and fishermen were rented and sold with the fisheries where they were employed. The cottager's house was a thatch-covered hut, chinked with mud or clay, without chimney, window or floor. hide, dressed with the hair on, swung like a hammock, served him for a bed; there were no mills except those operated by hand. He was his own tailor, tanner and clothier. The kit of a blacksmith consisted of four pieces; a carpenter's of six. There was no division of labor. The plow, a pick, a clodbreaker, spades, sickles and baskets for winnowing grain-comprised the list of agricultural implements.

The allowance of the laborer was two herrings a day, a loaf of wheat or barley bread, and milk from the manor house, with which to make his cheese.

Twenty years after the accession of William the Conquerer, nearly the whole territory of England had been wrested from its original proprietors and given away, making the condition of the agricultural population even worse than before. Still the art of agriculture progressed, thanks to the monks, and the proportion of freemen increased in consequence of the necessity for handicrafts which required intelligence and skill. By the year 1367, forty-eight "mysteries of labor," as the various employments of saddlers, brewers, masons, etc., were called, had been established in London and were strongly organized into guilds and fraternities. But the laws strictly forbade the teaching of any mystery to a husbandman or son of a husbandman. The mechanics having achieved an acknowledged political position as free subjects of the crown, the agricultural serfs showed signs of following their example. A statute of the First Richard (1377), is made "at the grievous complaint of the Lords and Commons of the realm, that in many parts the villains who owe services and customs to said lords have of late and do daily withdraw their services, and affirm them to be utterly discharged of all manner servage, due as well of their body as of their said tenures, and will not suffer any distress or other justice to be made upon them, and which more is, gather themselves in great routs, and agree by such confederacy that every one shall aid the other to resist their lords with the strong hand."

r

The memorable request of such a "confederacy," headed by Wat Tyler, "for the abolition of slavery for themselves and their children forever; for the reduction of rent, and the privilege of buying like other men in fairs and markets," resulted in the addition of insult to the injuries of this long-suffering class. "Rustics ye have been, and are,” the king told them, "and in bondage ye shall yet remain-not such as ye have .heretofore known, but in a condition incomparably more vile." From that time it was enacted that all persons who had been employed in any labor or service of husbandry until the age of twelve should from thenceforth abide at the same labor, and be forever incapable of being put to any other business. The evil effects of this irrational discrimination exercised toward agricultural industry, were not confined to the farming class, nor to England alone. Tenancy at will and tenant rights are more serious matters for English statesmanship to deal with now than

RATIO OF LAND OWNERS TO POPULATION.

41

they were before the Great Charter secured personal rights-and a trial by jury to every freeman born upon English soil.

At the time of the Norman conquest the population of England was supposed to be a million and a half, and the roll of land owners numbered over 45,000. In 1861, with a population of 20,000,000, the number of land owners is reduced to 30,000, and every twentieth man is a pauper. In Ireland, just before the famine, the rural population amounted to twenty-five for every hundred acres; in France, at the same period, to sixteen; in England to twelve, and in the Scotch Lowlands to five. Land monopoly has driven two millions of agricultural laborers out of Great Britain. The English farm laborer has been cheated of his manhood; first, by a monopoly of government, which, by withholding the ballot, kept him in a servile condition; second, by monopoly of land, which destroyed the highest motive for industry, viz: the improvement of his condition, and the attainment of a permanent home; and third, a monopoly of education.

In 1848 an English statesman was asked if something could not be done to check the stream of emigration setting from Ireland toward America. "Not while middlemen hold all the land as agents of the aristocracy, and get all the profits," was the significant reply.

Professor J. Thorold Rogers has given us a history of British agriculture from 1259 to 1793. He shows, from carefully collected data, how gradually the emancipation of the agricultural classes took place; how the aristocracy were eating each other up with expensive wars and the extravagance of courts; how the yeomanry lost ground during the reformation; what was their Golden Age, and that the English peasant is again becoming a serf, and the yeomanry disappearing in the absorption of nearly all the land by a small number of great proprietors.

If the end of labor, and of wealth created by labor, is man himself, the civilization of England finds a parallel in that of Rome, and for the same reasons. Its agriculture, successful and wonderful in its results during the last century and a half, is an exhibition of the power of capital applied to land. The development of agricultural wealth and of civilization in the United States and in Australia is an exhibition of the power of manhood similarly applied.

The advance in the price of agricultural labor in England has

been slower than in other countries. In 1273 the hay maker got 2 d. an acre; 24d. in 1400, with board; women laborers 8d. and fed themselves. The price for washing and shearing sheep was a penny a score; in twenty years sixteen were sheared for a penny, then ten, and finally eight. We read of one farmer at about the year 1500 who gave his women shearers 11⁄2d. a day and fed them. And yet Joseph Arch tells us that agricultural labor, all things considered, fared better then than now.

The price of meat and dairy products in England makes cattle raising more profitable than grain. Some one has said, and it is very near the truth, that a failure of the turnip crop for two years would bankrupt England. Agriculture is therefore growing in importance hourly, and so are all questions. involved in the feeding of that vast and rapidly increasing population. England is increasing her acreage as fast as she can, by reclamation, and reducing her pasturage. The culture of sainfoin, a crop good for six or seven years, has proved advantageous, also of buckwheat for fodder.

In 1789, 9,000,000 acres were cultivated; in 1869, 36,100,153; in 1870, 46,177,370, of which 11,755,053 acres were devoted to wheat culture. How far that goes in feeding the English millions is best seen by a statement of the imports of wheat and flour from the United States for fifteen years.

England cannot afford to raise her breadstuffs. She is compelled to make meat, hence the great preponderance of her agricultural work must be in the direction of hay and root crops. In these she is eminently successful.

Of Scotch farming, it may be said that it has made great