tten about
1656.

[407] See _Victoria County History: Rutland, Agriculture_. Stilton was
eaten in the same condition as many prefer it now, 'with the mites
round it so thick that they bring a spoon for you to eat them.'

[408] Defoe, _Tour_, i. (1) 78. Cheshire cheese was 2d. to 2-1/2d. per
lb., Cheddar 6d. to 8d. in 1724, an extraordinary difference.

[409] Bradley, i. 172.

[410] Preface to _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, (ed. 1733).

[411] _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, p. vi.

[412] _The West Country Farmer_, above quoted, says wheat growing (in
1737) paid little. Before a bushel can be sold it costs L4 an acre,
and the crop probably fetches half the money.

[413] _R.A.S.E. Journ._ (3rd Ser.), ii. 20.

[414] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 216.

[415] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 35.

[416] Wheat averaged:

1718-22 about 27s. 1730 about 30s. 1750 about 30s. 1724 " 36s. 1732 "
24s. 1755 " 35s. 1725 " 46s. 1736 " 30s. 1760 " 38s. 1726 " 35s. 1740
" 42s. 1765 " 42s. 1728 " 52s. 1744 " 23s.

[417] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 209. Nothing is charged
for tithe and taxes.

[418] Ibid. p. 352.

[419] See above, p. 177, also p. 199 for Young's estimate in 1770.

[420] Nothing is charged for the manure which was carted and spread.

[421] John Trusler, _Practical Husbandry_, p. 28.

[422] _Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director_ (1726), p. xiii.

CHAPTER XV

1700-1765

TOWNSHEND.--SHEEP-ROT.--CATTLE PLAGUE. FRUIT-GROWING

In 1730 Charles, second Viscount Townshend, retired from politics, on
his quarrel with his brother-in-law Walpole, who remarked that 'as
long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole the utmost harmony
prevailed, but it no sooner became Walpole and Townshend than things
went wrong'. He devoted himself to the management of his Norfolk
estates and set an example to English landlords in wisely and
diligently experimenting in farm practice which was soon followed on
all sides, the names of Lords Ducie, Peterborough, and Bolingbroke
being the best known of his fellow-labourers. A generation afterwards
Young wrote, 'half the County of Norfolk within the memory of man
yielded nothing but sheep feed, whereas those very tracts of land are
now covered with as fine barley and rye as any in the world and great
quantities of wheat besides.'[423] There can be no doubt from this
statement, made by an eyewitness of exceptional capacity, that he
commenced the work so nobly carried on by Coke. The s