10 0
=====

It should be noted that he has omitted to charge rent for the year in
which the crop was grown in both cases.

He considered fallowing and manure unnecessary, and grew without
manure 13 successive wheat crops on the same piece of ground, getting
better crops than his neighbours who pursued the ordinary course of
farming. His three great principles, indeed, were drilling, reduction
of seed, and absence of weeds, and he saw that dung was a great
carrier of the latter but lacked a due appreciation of its chemical
action. Of course, like all _improvers_, he was met with unlimited
opposition, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with
abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme annoyance. His
health was bad, his troubles with his labourers unending, his son a
spendthrift, and he died at his now famous home, Prosperous Farm, near
Hungerford, in 1741, having said not long before his death, 'Some,
allowed as good judges, have upon a full view and examination of my
practice declared their opinion that it would one day become the
general husbandry of England.'[413] Scotland was the first to perceive
the merits of the system, and it gradually worked southwards into
England, but for many years had to fight against ignorance and
prejudice, even so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to
it.

Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, and
cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at Hawsted, the
tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being allowed bushes and
stakes for so doing. He was also to bestow on some part of the lands
one load of good rotten muck over and above what was made on the farm
for every load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry
off.[414] In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the
tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and
fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the
country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a
penalty of L10 an acre for breaking up pasture; a great increase in
the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising
on the farm were to be bestowed upon it.

Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable
land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with
turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were