their own
land they were a sturdy and independent class, and they 'took a jolly
pride in voting as in fighting on the opposite side of the
neighbouring squire'. 'The yeomanry', wrote Fuller, 'is an estate of
people almost peculiar to England;' he 'wears russet clothes but
makes golden payment, having tin in his buttons and silver in his
pocket He seldom goes abroad, and his credit stretches farther than
his travel.' The tenant farmers were nearly as numerous, King
estimating them at 150,000 families; economically they were about on
a level with the yeoman, their social standing, however, was
considerably inferior.

The greatest improvement of the seventeenth century, the introduction
from Holland of turnips and clover, was over-estimated by its author,
Sir Richard Weston; for he tells his sons that by sowing flax,
turnips, and clover they might in five years improve 500 acres of poor
land so as to bring in L7,000 a year.[317] To bring about this
desirable consummation, he provides his sons with accounts as to the
cost, one of which shows the cost of growing an acre of flax and the
profit thereon, though this gentleman's estimates are clearly
optimistic:

DR. L s. d.

Devonshiring, i.e. paring and burning 1 0 0
Lime 0 12 0
Ploughing and harrowing 0 6 0
3 bushels of seed 2 0 0
Weeding 0 1 0
Pulling and binding 0 10 0
Grassing the seed from the flax 0 6 0
Watering, drying, swinging, and beating 4 10 0
----------
L9 5 0
==========

CR. L s. d.

900 lb. of flax 40 0 0
9 5 0
-----------
Balance profit L30 15 0
===========

Turnips were to come after flax, and were to be given to the cows as
they did in Flanders; that is, wash them clean, put them in a trough
where they were to be stamped together with a spitter or small spade;
and