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game is preserved, and by them destroyed; they are mostly beneath the law, and out of the reach of detection, and while they can earn four or five shillings, and sometimes more, in a night by poaching, they will not be satisfied with 10d. or 1s. per day for honest labour. A reform here is absolutely necessary, whether by consent or otherwise, and an inclosure of the commons and wastes will afford these cottagers an honester livelihood, if they think proper to embrace it; if not, brighter prospects will thereby accrue to the rising generation, who may not be so hardened as their progenitors."

PROVISIONS.-P. 70. "In all the counties round London provisions are dearer than in the metropolis, and much of the provisions with which the poor are fed, are brought from thence, independent of groceries. Yorkshire bacon, generally of the worst sort, is retailed to the poor from little chandlers shops, at an advanced price; bread is retailed to them in the same way."

MANUFACTURES.-P. 73. "The commerce of Hertfordshire is in the produce of the soil, and the only manufacture, properly so called, therein, is perfectly analogous thereto, and confined to the women and children of Dunstable, Luton, and that neighbourhood. It is the straw manufactory. Great quantities of malt is made about Ware, Hertford, and that neighbourhood, principally for the London consumption."

TITHE. This is a subject to which Mr. Walker repeatedly reverts; an impost on improvements in Agriculture, of which he is a decided adversary. The following extracts may be worth preserving.

P. 33. "The average rent of land in these parishes" (Coddicot and Kimpton) is about 8s. per acre, though that rent is certainly too little; the rector impropriate of part of the Jand which Mr. Hill occupies, formerly let his tithes on lease, and the composition exacted by the lessee never exceeded 2s. and 3d. per acre for all the land under the plough; this lease expired in 1793, and the rector employed a surveyor to value the land in his tithing, and to settle the future compositions to be paid to him for seven years. Some land which Mr. Hill had lately purchased, lay in half acres and small pieces intermixed in a common field with the lands of a farmer, who was as competent to farm as the surveyor to value, and had beggared himself and his farm, though his own property. The surveyor fascinated by the appearance of the crops produced by Mr. Hill's management and spring dressings, valued the tithe thereof at 6s. and 4d. per acre, and his neighbouring farmer's at 1s. 6d. though there is not a shadow of difference in the natural quality of

the

the soils in each; and some of Mr. Hill's lands of the same quality, which he had not then dressed, were valued at 1s. and 6d. also. The farmers of lands within this tithing have in consequence rejected these strange compositions, and are determined in future to slacken in their improvements thereof, leaving it to the rector to resort to tithes in kind, till experience has taught him to be more reasonable."

P. 36. "I valued a farm in the parish of Ashwell, and in an adjoining parish in the county of Cambridge, the 12th and 13th of May, 1794, in the occupation of an industrious and improving farmer, who kept his lands in as good condition as they could reasonably be expected in a common field state; about 260 acres of this land is in Ashwell, for which he paid Mr. Whitbread, the rector'impropriate, a composition of three shillings per acre ; about 20 acres in the adjoining parish of Great Morden in Cambridgeshire, did not appear to me to have equal justice done to them: the farmer's man who attended me gave the following very satisfactory reason. The rector of this parish has for some years taken tithes in kind, and my master has never since suffered the dung cart to travel over the shire baulk.'"

Under the head "Obstacles to Improvement," we find this Reporter powerful in fight against Tithes.-P. 77. “If the rector, or his tithe-renter, or gatherer, is of a litigious and troublesome disposition, which the tithe laws, as they now stand, put it too much in their power to indulge, the evil of tithes in kind is increased to an alarming magnitude. In rainy and uncertain harvest weather, when prudence dictates the housing or stacking the crops immediately from the scythe or sickle, to avoid the consequences of the season, they must be shocked or cocked before the farmer can give the rector, or his petty tyrant of the parish, notice to set out the tithe; he must wait a reasonable time for his arrival on the spot, before he will venture to decimate ex parte; in the mean time a sudden and heavy rain outstrips the slow-paced tithing-man, and both crop and tithe are much injured or totally ruined thereby. If the tithing-man does not arrive in the usual time allotted to him, the farmer leaves the tenth shock or cock, and carries the rest of the crop at the risk of a lawsuit. How frequently in such seasons do the tithes, rotting on the ground, meet the eye of the traveller in every part of England."

P. 78. "The Hertfordshire farmers set the example of spring or top dressings, which are brought from distant parts, principally from London, and therefore expensive: they are peculiarly applicable to light lands, and their effects end with the crops on which they are sown. This accounts for the moderation of the Hertfordshire rectors in general,

and

and these dressings would no doubt produce good crops on all light, sandy, or gravelly thin lands, and soils barren to the generality of seasons, but if a tenth thereof is taken from the grower, he will soon be ruined."

P. 80. "The consequences of tithes in kind taken by the clergy, are continual disputes and bickerings between them and their parishioners; the farmers grumble, slacken in their improvements, give their spiritual guide all the trouble in their power while collecting his tithes, and cheat him if they can; he recurs to law, and soon becomes the most unpopular man in his parish; the church is deserted, the flock rapidly emerge into a state of nature, or are led away by the cant of knaves and blockheads."

CANALS.-P. 8. "The grand junction canal, from Branston wharf on the Coventry canal to Oid Brentford, where it joins the Thames, enters the county of Hertford above Berkhamstead, and follows the course of the Bulburn and Gade to Rickmansworth; and, from thence the course of the Colne, till it leaves the county."

ROADS.-P. 86. "Good roads in a corn country facilitate the agriculture thereof, as the crops are thereby conveyed to market, and foreign manure returned by back carriage. The roads in Hertfordshire are in general excellent, good materials to mend them abound every where; the sections of the great roads are curved, and rise in the middle about one foot in thirty; the timber trees and hedges towards the south sides thereof are lopped and kept low, that the sun, may dry the roads,"

RURAL ECONOMY.

DRAINING

'TENANTED ESTATES.

RAINING ESTATES.-P. 66. "If a pit is sunk 20 or 30 feet deep, in the middle of a field, through the Hertfordshire red, finty, and impervious clay, into the chalk below; when the usual quantity of chalk is taken out, the pit shaft is filled up with the flints taken out of the chalk and clay, and the top drainage of this part of the field much shortened for ever afterwards, by making principal drains from the part of the field above the level of the top of the pit, terminate therein, and the superabundant moisture will escape through the flints in the pit soaft to the chatk below."

IRRIGATION. On this valuable operation (when rightly performed) the Reporter has bestowed ten pages,—no in

considerable

considerable portion of his work ;-without furnishing a superiorly useful idea on the subject. Concerning the nature of waters, most suitable to the purpose, the best method of applying them, and the proper season for using them, he appears to have been,-at the time of writing,-equally uninformed.

RENT.-P. 30. "Hertfordshire is justly deemed the first and best corn county in the kingdom, though the soil therein is much inferior in point of natural fertility to many other counties; for notwithstanding its vicinity to the metropolis, its many large and populous market-towns and villages, famed villas, and great and much frequented roads, leading to the distant parts of the kingdom, the average rent of the lands therein does not exceed 12s. per acre."

WOODLAND S.

P. 68. "Where the soil varies so much, where the greatest part is under the plough, and where dressings are found to suit the poorest soils, this county may be said to be well wooded. Independent of the woodlands contiguous to the seats of gentlemen, nearly the whole county is interspersed with small woods and copses, and these generally occupy the most barren and gravelly spots, which are well adapted to the quick growth of underwood. The woods are well fenced in, when cut, and preserved from the bret of cattle, and also drained, if necessary. As the growth of hop poles is not attended to, the woods are cut in succession, about every ten years, and the straight sapplings of oak, ash, beech, sallow, birch, poplar, hornbeam, or any other wood, either from the stub or seed, are preserved till the succeeding fall, and then a due succession of the oak, ash, and beech seedlings are preserved, the rest are cut down and split for sheep flakes. Great part of the underwood is hazle."

AGRICULTURE.

FARMS.-P. 12. "A farm, should be of a sufficient

size or greatness to afford constant employ to a team of adequate strength to plough the lands therein. There are many farms, particularly towards London, below this stan

dard;

dard; and in general they do not exceed 100%. or 1207. per annum.-There are a few farms from 400l. to 600l. and upwards per annum.'

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HOMESTEADS.-P. 70. "The Hertfordshire farm houses and offices differ much: many of the houses are old buildings, and the quondam residences of the owners of the soil, constructed without taste or convenience, and situated at one side or end of the land held therewith; the offices, and particularly the barns, are in general good, and some of them capital. It is much easier to describe and point out what farm houses and offices should be, than what they are."

Accordingly, the Reporter offers, in detail, the requisites of Farm Houses and Cottages;-such as the "annexed sketch" represents. I happen, I know not why, to have two copies of this Report, in neither of which any sketch appears. The verbal description is very well. I find nothing in it, however, of peculiar excellence.

OBJECTS and STATE of HUSBANDRY.-P. 9. "Hertfordshire is deemed the first corn county in the kingdom; and very properly so, for with the requisite advantage of climate, and of the various manures brought from London, to aid the production of the most valuable crops, nearly the whole of the soil is properly tillage land.”

P. 12. "By far the greatest part being adapted to tillage, and not meadow or pasture, it is so occupied, except what is reserved for pleasure in the parks of gentlemen, and that part also would be more usefully employed in tillage."

PLAN of MANAGEMENT.-P. 24. "The rotation of crops in the county of Hertford, in common with those in all other counties in the kingdom, differ widely; for instance, it is a common practice in some parts of the county of Hertford, to take after turnips two succeeding crops of barley; the first without, and the second with seeds."-Indeed, from what appears in the unsatifactory sketch, on this head, Hertfordshire would seem to have no regularly established succession of crops.

WORKPEOPLE.-P. 83. "Great part of the labour of farmers is performed by annual domestic servants, whose labour commences and ceases at no stated hours. Day labourers work from six to six in the summer, and from seven to five in the winter; their usual wages is eight shillings per week in the summer, and six in the winter." WORKING ANIMALS.-P. 48. "Horses are in general made use of. Oxen are used by some gentlemen, and Mr. Casmajor in particular."-" He gives his bullocks not so much hay as they can eat at a time, and they chew the cud at the intervals of feeding, by which means their food

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