The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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352 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM specially successful in improving the breed of sheep. During this period, the high price of corn and facilities for feeding stock rendered agricultural improvement profitable, and it also became fashionable, King George IIL devoted himself enthusiastically to the concerns of his Windsor farm; he wrote articles which he signed Ralph Robinson, and many of the nobility in different parts of the country followed him in these pursuits?,and set an example which found many imitators and which proved exceedingly profitable at all events to those who had sufficient capital. The pro- 235. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- Jessop ion: ries, the enclosure of common waste and common fields was aden an outward and visible sign of the progress of improvement in the management of land. The primitive method of laying out the land of the freeholders and tenants as scattered strips in common fields, with pasture rights on the common waste?, presented an obstacle to any changes for the better. The existence of common fields, cultivated by common custom was a hindrance to improved husbandry®; and the pasturage on common wastes was often spoiled from lack of better management’ When the land was devoted to its most profitable uses, there was an increased food supply, and a mich larger fund from which taxation could be drawn, so ‘hat the increase in national wealth was undoubted®: but ‘he effects on the rural population are much more difficult to A.D. 1639 1776. | The Duke of Bedford was one of the leaders in this movement; and the sheep-shearings of Woburn were remarkable gatherings of gentry who were nterested in encouraging the breeding of sheep. Prizes were given for this pbject as well as for the improvement of agricultural implements. There was an sven more celebrated meeting, instituted by Mr Coke of Holkham in Norfolk, where the prizes offered included rewards for labourers who showed special skill in particular departments of farm work (Annals of Agriculture, xxx1%. 42, 61). 2 For an excellent map of this arrangement as it survived in 1905 at Upton S. Leonards, see Victoria County History, Gloucester, IX. 167; also for maps of Walthamstow, Bestmoor, Barton-le-Street, Donisthorpe, and Shilton in 1844, see Report from the Select Committee on Common Enclosure 1844. v. 489—497. 8 §. Taylor, Common Good, p- 18. + Worlidge, Systema Agriculturae (1687), 10. # John Lawrence, rector of Bishop's Wearmouth, wrote decidedly in favour of the change in his New System of Agriculture (1726), p. 45; so too Edward Laurence, Duty of a Steward to kis Lord (1727), p. 87; and John Mortimer, Art of Husbandry, p. 1 (1707); and the anonymous authors of the Great Im- provement of Commons that are enclosed (1732), Brit. Mus, T. 1856 (7), and an 01d Almanack (1735). Brit. Mus. T. 1856 (9). See p. 558, n. 2 below.

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