ecause, he said, the rows are more exposed to the violence of the
winds, rains, &c., by growing apart, than if close together, when the
stalks support each other.[418] This estimate may be compared to that
of Tull for the 'old way' of sowing wheat,[419] and to the following
estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better
price:--

DR. L s. d.

Rent, tithe, taxes 1 0 0
Team, &c. 1 0 0
2 bushels of seed 10 0
Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing 2 6
Brining 6
Weeding 1 6
Reaping and carrying 9 0
Threshing and cleaning 7 6
Binding straw 1 6
---------
L3 12 6[420]
=========

CR.
20 bushels at 5s. 5 0 0
1-1/2 loads of straw 1 2 6
---------
L6 2 6
=========

The profit was thus L2 10s. 0d. an acre, and for barley it was L3 3s.
6d., for oats L1 19s. 10d., for beans L1 13s. 0d.[421]

This crop of wheat was not very good, as the average in that district
was from 20 to 25 bushels per acre, and Young before this saw crops of
30 bushels per acre growing. The over frequent use of fallows, which
had so long marked agriculture, was in the early half of the
eighteenth century beginning to be strongly disapproved of. Bradley
advocated the continuous cultivation of the ground with different
kinds of crops, 'for I find', he said, 'by experience that if such
crops are sown as are full of fibrous roots, such roots greatly help
to open the parts of grounds inclining to too much stiffness.'[422]

FOOTNOTES:

[367] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 472.

[368] See Baker, _Record of Seasons and Prices_, p. 185.

[369] Eden, _State of the Poor_, iii p. cvii; Thorold Rogers, _Work
and Wages_, p. 396.

[370] In Herefordshire at this time it was 1