:ibl II

L

,! Book Reviews

PETER MATHIAS, The Brewing Industry in cereals, has exercised a far wider dominion , z7oo-z83o. Cambridge Uni- over the textbooks of farming history than versity Press, 1959. xxviii+596 pp. 85s. she has ever enjoyed in the fields." In the The Industrial Revolution has been present- early eighteenth century the national output ed for the most part in terms of changes in of barley, which, unlike wheat, could be the mining, metallurgical, and textile in- grown profitably in every county in England dustries. Now we have for the first time a de- and Wales, was almost certainly greater in tailed and scholarly account of the 'revolu- bulk than that of wheat. (An unfortunate tion' in an industry of the food and drink error in line 18 on page 39 ° , where 'bushels' group, and one which was wholly dependent should read 'quarters', makes nonsense of for its raw materials, barley and hops, on Charles Smith's estimate of 1766 for English native agriculture. By the end of the seven- oat, rye, and wheat production.) Mr Mathias's teenth century the terms 'ale' (originally a chapters on national and regional barley farm- sweetish, unhopped malt liquor) and the ing, malting, and the hop industry and its newer 'beer' (a bitter, hopped malt liquor) markets are in themselves a first-class con- had come to describe more or less identical tribution to the history of English agriculture. products following the victory of the latter This scholarly book is, however, packed drink. Beer brewing was already to a great ex- throughout with well-digested information, tent a factory industry in London and the drawn very largely from hitherto unquarried larger towns. There was even a certain business archives, and it is difficult to see how amount of automation, based on horse-driven it can ever be superseded. pumps and gravity feed, and there existed a W. H. CHALONER mass retail market for beer similar to that served by the flour miller and baker. But ex- B. H. SLICHERVAN BATH, De agrarische ge- pansion in the larger breweries was limited by schiedenis van West Europa (5oo-z85o). the cost of transport and the risk of deteriora- 416 pp. Aula-Boeken, Het Spectrum N.Y. tion in the finished product. Then in or Utrecht: Antwerp, 196o. f. 3.5 ° (about 7s.). about I72~ came the invention of porter and Paper back. the subsequent growth of porter brewing, Ever since I read Andr6 ~. Bourde, The In- particularly in London; in fact Mr Mathias's fluence of England on the French Agronomes, book deals mainly with the period during 75o- 7s9, I have been convinced that one of which fhe cheaper and hardier porter reigned the most neglected factors in the history of supreme. "The appearance of the new beer the development of farming is the relation should be seen.., as an event of the first im- with each other between the various systems portance, or as an invention exactly equiva- practised in the different countries of western lent in its own industry to coke-smelted iron, Europe, and at a later date those of the world. mule-spun muslin in textiles, or 'pressed- My studies for the last two volumes of the ware' in pottery." After the application of the History of Technology underlined, at least in rotative steam engine to the trade from 1784 my own mind, this conviction. The most onwards it became possible to speak of familiar nexus amongst all of these is that be- 'power-loom brewers', and in 1796 Samuel tween Flanders and this country which I have Whitbread brewed "for the first time in any discussed in a minor way in an essay 'Low brewery in the world, over 2oo,ooo barrels of Countries Influence on English Farming' porter in a single season." The basis of this (English Historical Review, Oct., 1959). There industry was 'John Barleycorn'. As Mr are many others: the persistence of the classi- Mathias remarks, wheat, "the queen of cal tradition along the Mediterranean littoral, 116

:ii il;i BOOK REVIEWS 117 the influence of the Arabs in Spain and glances at Scandinavia and occasional refer- Sicily, the development of a four-course ro- ences to Spain and Italy, is provided. The tation in Piedmont and the Moselle highlands, progress in land reclamation, the change in the relation between Denmark, Schleswig, the relation of landlord and tenant, the effects Friesland, and north-west Germany, both in of economic, demographic, and industrial cattle-breeding and crop rotation. development are not neglected, and instruc- Such studies as those of Dr Bourde and tive statistical tables, when the material allows, my own only sketch the fringes of the subject. are provided. The development of new tech- Now comes to hand Professor Slicher van niques in farming is discussed. A glance at Bath's elaborate and careful study. It is a ma- the bibliography shows a remarkable acquain- jor work in a minor dress, covering more than tance with the vast literature of the subject. a thousand years in time, and an equally wide This is a book that has long been wanted, is areain space. By the year 50o A.D. the economy most admirably designed, and should be of the Pax Romana had collapsed; by 185o the translated into English without delay. modern period of mechanical industrial pro- G. E. FUSSELL duction was well established, and new trans- port facilities had made the importation of J. A. SYMON, Scottish Farming Past and Pre- overseas foodstuffs possible. Times had chang- sent. Oliver and Boyd, I959. 476 pp. 42s. ed. This is not to say, of course, that industry As Mr Symon puts it at the beginning of had not been developed, and that the exchange Chapter xviII: "From the agricultural stand- of manufactured goods for foodstuffs did not point Scotland is not one but several coun- exist before that date; but the recovery of a tries, each with varying conditions of soil and money economy had been slow in appearing. climate determining its system of farming." It took nearly a thousand years. This is what gives rise to the difficulty of writ- Professor van Bath has described in detail ing, in one volume, a comprehensive and satis- the so-called natural economy of western factory account of Scottish agriculture from Europe between the collapse of the Roman earliest times tiU the present day, even when in Empire and the Middle Ages. He describes this case the writer is one who has upwards of the slow emergence of feudality, and he fifty years of experience behind him as a prac- brings to our notice many documents of the tical farmer, a lecturer on agriculture, and a early middle ages that are not, I suspect, too representative of the Government concerned well known to agricultural historians in this with agricultural education and research. This country. He has compiled convincing figures difficulty becomes evident from those chap- showing area yield and kinds of grain cultiva- ters of the book which deal with the eighteenth ted in different districts, and he has discussed century onwards. the feeding habits of people dependent for The first hundred pages bring the story their nutrition on their systems of agriculture through the feudal and monastic periods up to and the crops cultivated. the beginning of the eighteenth-century im- The recovery and increase of population provements. Much valuable material is set be- between the ninth and the thirteenth century fore us, for example on early leases (pp. 67 ft.) is familiar ground, as is the general effect of and teinds (8i ff.). By combing through the the Black Death. From this time onwards Acts of the Parliament of Scotland and such there have been innumerable local-period works as the Rental Book of tke Cistercian Ab- studies, and the general outline of the progress bey of Coupar-Angus, Mr Symon has amass- of western Europe is perhaps better known. ed a deal of useful statistical information It would be supererogatory to re-sketch it about exports of cattle, sheep, hides, and wool, here. It is enough to say that a comprehensive exports and imports of grain, the value offish- description of what happened from the limits ery products, the numbers of animals and hens, of east Germany to the Atlantic, with some and the quantities of produce rendered as rent 118 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW in kind (from which an idea of the agricultural Machairs, incorrectly described on p. I 19 as output for some parts of the country may be "peat-covered lands," are properly tracts of gained). bent-covered sandy soil. In a book of this size The first two chapters are illustrated by and scope one would expect a better source seven Figures, the sources of only twol being than John Gunn's Orkney Book (i9o9) for in- given. The sickle plough on p. 7 looks like a formation on the complicated story of udal poor copy of the one shown in Maclean's land tenure in Orkney. The great part played History of Mull, I9z5, n, p. II2, or in J. Mac- by the beefindust_u¢ in the Western and North- donald's General View of the Agriculture of the ern Islands, and its considerable influence on Hebrides, 181 I, p. 156, and the caschrom is too agriculture, is not mentioned. It is also worth awkwardly shaped to be workable (caschromis remembering that the clearances, which turn- invariably spelt wrongly throughout the book ed much cultivable land into sheep-runs, gave with a grave accent above the a). The "cup- a considerable boost to the herring industry pled house" on p. 27 should also be better rep- from the re-settlement of displaced persons at resented. The illustrations are not as closely the coast. As always, however, we are given a linked with the text as one would like, and this lot of handy statistical information; but a full also applies to most of the photographs, in treatment of agriculture in those areas really themselves excellent, which ornament the demands a separate volume by a specialist. latter part of the book. Chapter xvm, on land settlement, deals For the eighteenth century, a certain dif- withcroftingagriculture amongst other things. fuseness of treatment is evident. Thus, to get Since 5o,ooo of the 75,ooo agricultural hold- anything like a complete story one must read ings in Scotland are under 5 ° acres arable Chapters vii, IX, xvII, and xIx, and, for the (p. 4z4), one would like to see a somewhat full- Highlands and Northern Islands, Chapters er treatment of the subject. Crofting, even vIIX and xvn. The emphasis is on the indivi- more than farming, is a way of life rather than dual achievements of "leading personalities." an industry, and since the geography of Scot- It is not easy to get the pattern of eighteenth- land will probably always make crofting agri- century agriculture clear for the various parts culture an essential part of its economy, the of the country, and Mr Symon is too apt to ideal type of land settlement would seem to be generalize for all of Scotland what is in fact that in which, by a series of holdings of graded characteristic of only a small area, as can be sizes, a young man of enterprise and ability seen from the concluding paragraph of almost could climb the ladder of agricultural success every chapter in the book. Considering the without any great initial outlay of money. It is enormous wealth of material at the disposal well to be reminded that a Lowland croft, of the eighteenth-century agricultural his- which is run like a miniature farm, is very dif- torian, his somewhat scanty treatment of the ferent from a Highland croft, though both to period is surprising. For this period, and some extent come under the definition of a throughout the chapters which take the story croft, on p. z87, as "any self-contained and of Scottish agriculture through the periods of separately occupied small unit of from one to depression and prosperity caused by the wars ten or more acres, exclusive of outrun." of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mr This meaning of the word croft came into Symon tends to paint pictures of unrelieved use towards the end of the eighteenth century gloom or of all-embracing rosiness. The and became firmly established after the Crof- mixture of grain crops and beef-production ters CommissionReport of 1884. In the days be- gives Scottish agriculture considerable elas- fore enclosures, the word was applied to the ticity, even when times are very bleak. infield, or cultivable land around the build- The two chapters on the Highlands and ings, or a portion of this, but not to the whole Northern Islands are in many respects in- agricultural unit. When this has been realized, adequate, and in some points inaccurate. the problems raised about medieval "croftis"

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,', ...... BOOK REVIEWS 119 on p. 287 and elsewhere become non-exist- ways glossed in the text, and will not all be ent. found in English dictionaries. The chapters dealing with twentieth-cen- The book as a whole is well produced and tury agriculture, bringing the story up to the pleasant to look at. It is to be hoped that the present day, and those dealing with specific fair number of misprints and minor errors will topics--livestock, poultry and bees, grass- be corrected in a later edition. lands, the potato, etc.--are the best parts of ALEXANDER FENTON the book, and will have the widest appeal to the farming public. The great and ever-in- THOMAS C. SMITH, Thg Agrarian Origins of creasing partwhich the government has played Modern ~apan. Stanford University Press, in all branches of agriculture, chiefly from the 1959. xii+zso pp. 4os. time of the i914-i8 war, is here documented The author, an associate professor of history by one who has inside knowledge of the de- at Stanford University, considers that the partment most intimately concerned with rapid modernization of Japan after the Meiji agriculture. His keen interest in experiment Restoration of 1868 was prepared and deter- and research on subjects which, like bees and mined largely by agrarian development in the horticulture, are not exclusively agricultural, Tolmgawa period. In the first part of this book and in the diffusion of knowledge through he studies the traditional seventeenth-century instructors, advisers, group discussions, etc., village with respect to its land system, social results in a readable and informative section. organization, farming practices, and the The story of the Highland and Agricultural structure of political power. Then in the Society, of the various Research Institutes second part he traces the process of transfor- and Associations, of the ramifications of their mation of the village from the eighteenth cen- work, and of the increasing influence these tury onwards, through the growth of markets, bodies are exerting on all branches of food rising agricultural productivity based on tech- production (and thereby on the social well- nical advances, changing farming system and being of the nation) makes very interesting class structure, and political conflict in the reading. village; and he stresses the importance for The appendices are of considerable value. Japanese history of agrarian changes, the The first, giving a chronological list of books central feature of which was a shift from co- relating to Scottish agriculture down to i85o , operative to individual farming, "perhaps should, when used in conjunction with the justifying comparison with the agricultural similarly large bibliographical appendix in revolution in Europe." Finally he makes clear J. E. Handley's Scottish Farming in the Eigh- the significance of these agrarian changes for teenth Century, make it unnecessary for future later economic and political development. writers on Scottish agriculture to use up space Besides making full use of the researches pro- on book lists. The other appendices give a list secuted since the war by Japanese scholars, of the Acts of Parliament relating to agricul- usually unfamiliar to foreign students by ture from David I to George VI; the fiats reason of linguistic difficulties, he also uti- prices of oats from 1647-i956 , thus supplying lizes original materials himself. His work is a a need which Malcolm Gray felt in The High- most attractive survey of the subject, and at land Economy (I95i); and a group of tables the same time a clear and reliable summary. containing agricultural statistics relating to The most interesting point of his study for crops, labour, production, distribution of dif- English agrarian historians is that he always ferent types of farms, and so on. In a book so tries to compare the agrarian changes of the generously endowed with appendices, one Tokugawa period with contemporary agra- might also wish for a glossary, since a number rian development in western European coUn- of Scots words, such as muirburn, winning, tries; but finding that they took entirely dif- shielings, haining, mashlum, etc., are not al- ferent courses, "despite the fact that the i!;

!: 120 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW starting points in the two cases were similar the growth of new settlements. Staveley, for in important respects," he notices the inade- example, itself meaning 'clearing from wood quacy of the comparison. It seems to me, where staves were got', begot Staveley Wood- however, that an interesting and profitable thorpe by the twelfth century, Netherthorpe comparison might have been possible had he in the thirteenth, and The Hague by the tried to choose the counterpart of agrarian fourteenth century. Alfreton parish acquired changes in Japan at the corresponding stage a new hamlet called Riddings in the mid- of economic development in European coun- thirteenth century, and in the early fourteenth tries, instead of comparing directly two differ- century Swanwick (a dairy farm) and Somer- ent developments merely because they hap- cotes (summer shelters), both suggesting that pened during the same period. they originated as the headquarters of sum- K. UGAWA mer dairy pastures and later developed into permanent settlements. In the K. C~ERON, The Place-Namesof . of north-west Derbyshire, the booths of English Place-Name Society, Vols. XXVlI- parish likewise imply temporary summer XXlX, 1959. lxxiv + 83 ° pp. £5 5s. (i.e. 35 s. pastures in the royal forest (the earliest each). documented reference dating from the mid- Comparatively little work has yet been done fourteenth century, at least a century after the on the farming history of Derbyshire. These first references to the booths of Rossendale three substantial volumes on the place-names and of Macclesfield Forest in Cheshire), of the county, therefore, are specially wel- which had been transformed by the mid- come. Mr Cameron contributes an interesting Tudor period, and probably much earlier, and informative introduction using the col- into permanent cattle stations, officially called lective evidence of place-names to suggest the vacearies. As pressure on the land increased, chronology of early settlement, leaving the colonists were found to populate even the reader the no less absorbing task of looking most barren hills of the Peak. The parish of at each parish individually and speculating Hope Woodlands, lying in a region which is upon its later history of colonization and ex- nowadays classed as land of little agricultural pansion. This labour is immensely reward- value, had attracted settlers to Ashop and ing, for most of the eastern half of the county Lockerbrook farms by the beginning of the as well as much of the north-west was origin- thirteenth, and to Ronksley and Rowley ally densely wooded, and much clearance did farms by the mid-fifteenth century. not take place until the later Middle Ages. For a county which probably occupied As Mr Cameron shows, the Anglo.-Saxons almost as many of its inhabitants in its mines skirted the forests by entering the county as in its fields by the beginning of the seven- from the Trent valley and moving north and teenth century, there are surprisingly few north-west along the Dove and Derwent place-names to suggest the importance of valleys. A map showing the place-names sug- minerals, though some of the names of the gestive of former woodland illustrates this groves, that deceptively alluring term for a argument better than words (though the pur- leadmine, have survived. As for the absence pose of the map could have been made more of pre-English names in the leadmining area, readily intelligible to the casual reader if it Mr Cameron seeks to solve this problem by had been given a title. The same criticism can suggesting that the mines were worked only be made of all the maps, which, be it noted, in the summer months and were temporary are in the pocket at the end of Vol. III, not sites only. But the temporary use of land for at the end of Vol. I as is stated in the table of summer pastures did not prevent other places contents and on the dust-jacket). from acquiring names that persisted into the ,i Many parishes in eastern Derbyshire, era when they became permanent settle- therefore, admirably illustrate assarting and ments. Place-name study, of course, is a ii~

i;i~ ' ii:i BOOK REVIEWS 121 treacherous bog, and the most difficult pro- has been attempted." Altogether the volume positions to defend are those which argue contains over 6,500 items: some five thousand from silence. Mr Cameron is more aware of new titles were collected, of which about one- the dangers than we who look on, admire, half were finally included. A comparison of and criticize. He treads most warily of all the various sections thus provides an in- when considering the possibility of the sur- teresting if salutary conspectus of historical vival of British villages into the Anglo- studies during the last generation. That on Saxon period. On this controversial issue, he 'Political History' has expanded by nearly seems to veer rather towards the side of those 60 per cent, on 'Cultural and Social History' who think that few Celtic settlements sur- by more than xoo per cent, but on 'Economic vived except in the north-west. Many of his History' by only 3 ° per cent. Of the last arguments, however, provoke retort. For ex- 'Agrarian History' (under the title of 'Rural ample, even though it be accepted that "few Conditions') comprises, with 1o2 entries, less of the names [containing the element 'walh'] than one-quarter, but 'Industrial and Com- bear the mark of any great antiquity," this mercial History' more than three-quarters. does not prove that they were not old settle- The problem in 'Economic History', we are ments. One would not expect such names to told, has been rather one of "getting every- be of any greater antiquity than the Anglo- thing in than of leaving anything out." The Saxon settlements around them. And if, as present reviewer has not noted any serious Mr Cameron believes, Walton still means a omissions, though occasionally the editorial 'farm of the serfs', where, it may be asked, did comments seem insufficient. Some further the serfs come from? The stimulating debate note than "The standard book on the sub- on the survival of British villages can now ject" now seems called for against H. L. continue with fresh arguments based upon Gray's English Field Systems. Derbyshire. Mr Cameron can feel satisfied In the field of Local History the volume is that his three volumes will start more dis- open to more serious criticism. Everyone will cussion on this and other topics, for he has sympathize with the editor's statement that equipped his readers with much new know- "There is a real need for a critical biblio- ledge enabling them to take another and more graphy of English local history, a field in intelligent look at the Derbyshire countryside. which there are so many tares among the JOAN THIRSK wheat..." It is therefore all the more pity that the present highly select entries have not been CONYERS READ (ed.), Bibliography of British more carefully checked and sifted. It is one History: Tudor Period, z485-z6o3. Issued of the few sections not stated to have been under the direction of the American His- submitted to the scrutiny of specialists, or of torical Association and the Royal Historical scholars in this country, and it is the one Society of Great Britain. Oxford Universi- which most evidently requires it. The list of ty Press, 2nd edn, 1959. xxviii+624 pp. 'Other Works' now added under each county, 63s. generally consisting of half a dozen articles The second edition of this familiar and in- in local archaeological collections, which also valuable work covers the new material on appear generically under 'Local Societies', is Tudor England published during the last too selective to be of much assistance. The 25 years. It is identical in form with the first, choice of entries under 'Town Histories and except for a rearrangement of the section Records' seems particularly haphazard, quite covering Wales. "An exhaustive survey of the apart from the fact that many works so listed, material in print has been made to I January like J. S. Brewer's Hatfield House, are not 1957 . Many entries have been made of books 'town histories'. To cite one county only: out and articles appearing since that date, but no of the seven items mentioned in this section complete survey of this more recent literature under Kent, it is strange to include no less iii: iijl I'i! :i 122 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

than three works on Dover, Bridgman's the first world war led to a shortage of food- Shetch of Knole (which is little more than a stuffs in Europe, thence to over-production in Regency guide-book), a history of Chisle- Canada, Argentina, etc., to surpluses, "serious burst, and nothing on either the episcopal disequilibria," policies of protection, and in- city of Rochester or the county town of Maid- dustrial consumers paying higher prices for stone. There are useful if old-fashioned food. These are economic trends, not history. works by J. M. Russell on Maidstone (1881) More interesting pieces of agricultural history and F. F. Smith on Rochester (1928). If any- may be found in the editor's own chapter on thing were to be included on Knole it should "The Transformation of Social Life." But if have been C. J. Phillips's History of the Sack- we are to read about agriculture in a passage on ville Family (2 vols. [193o]). The cross-refer- the failure of democratic political institutions ences to items in Gross's Bibliography of in a chapter on social life, we clearly need a British Municipal History and Sources and better index than is provided here. This vol- Literature of English History... to about z485 ume contains a brilliant chapter on the Peace contain several unnecessary repetitions of Settlement of Versailles. For the rest, one items cited in full in the text, and no. 671 is an deplores that the editorial plan was not more error for 677. definite and more capable of realization. A casual examination, indeed, shows that NORMAN SCARFE the volume as a whole should have received more careful checking. Dr Finberg appears VAL CHEKE, The Story of Cheese-Making in as an author on p. 364, but his name is not in- Britain. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959. dexed; an index reference under Dr Hoskins's xii+348 pp. 4os. name (4335 a) does not appear in the text; G. This is a delightful story of cheese-making R. Batho's initials are wrongly given on and although historians may claim that it is P. 345; 'Deene' is mis-spelt in the index not a history in the true sense, it is a book that (P. 554); Dr Willan's name is mis-spelt on will remain for long an important source of p. xii; Ireland's History of Kent remains information. It is attractively written. The garbled, as in the first edition, under the chapters on early history, more especially name 'Weland'; and Bridges's Northampton- those dealing with cheese from Saxon to shire was not compiled from "the manuscript Tudor times and cheese-making in the seven- collections of Sir Peter Whalley," but (as the teenth and eighteenth centuries, are of special title page indicates) from the manuscript col- interest to the local historian. In spite of the lections of John Bridges by the Rev. Peter modern progress in cheese-making which the Whalley. author refers to in grea~ detail, it is unfortun- A. M. EVERITT ate that economics and costs of production prevent us from having that rich flavour of DAVID THOMSON (ed.), The New Cambridge a slowly matured and mellow blue-veined Modern History, Volume XlI, The Era of cheese. No longer do we see Blue Wensley- Violence: 1898-1945 . Cambridge Univer- dale in any quantity, Blue Vinney (the lovely sity Press, 196o. 602 pp. 37 s. 6d. Dorset blue) is no more, and the epicurean's Whoever may profit by reading this book, it dream, a Blue Cheshire, appears to have will not be a student of agricultural history. A vanished entirely. It would almost appear brief early chapter entitled "The Economic that there is a small fortune to be made by an Map of the World" suggests some reasons for enterprising cheese-maker who will provide the general dissatisfaction with which this vol- us with these delights of bygone days. A great ume has been received. If Professor Allen had deal of patient research has gone into the been able to concentrate on an Economic Map writing of this book, not only about cheese- of Europe he might have succeeded. As it is, making, but also about the lives and living we can be told, of the agrarian story, only that conditions of those who made the British

17 / BOOK REVIEWS 123 cheeses in farm dairies throughout Great negotiations between the Sugar Board and Britain. the refiners over the implementation of the The appendix is too scientific for the lay- agreed price for Commonwealth sugar. man, and may not be detailed enough for the Future issues could be even more valuable dairy technician; and its connection with the if the text were rigorously pruned of these story of cheese-making is rather remote. less important matters and all the sources Apart from this, it is a book that is a useful quoted instead. addition to the literature of agriculture. EDITH H. WHETHAM ALEXANDER HAY MARYD. LOBEL(ed.), A History of the County PHILIP A. WRIOHT, Traction Engines. A. & C. of Oxford. Vol. vI, Ploughley Hundred. Black, 1959. xiv+9o pp., illus, zIs. Oxford University Press, 1959. xxviii+ Little serious attention has yet been paid to 39 ° pp. £6 6s. the history of the steam traction engine, ex- Ploughley Hundred lies east of the Cherwell, cept by Mr Ronald Clark in his excellent on the borders of Northamptonshire and studies of the firms that built them in the Buckinghamshire, and most of its thirty-odd eastern counties. Mr Wright's book is there- parishes are on the belt of cornbrash between fore welcome as a brief general survey of the the oolite plateau and the Oxfordshire clay. subject. Though it is primarily concerned, as Its uplands are rather bleak, and cornbrash its title implies, with the machines themselves, soil is not the county's best. Ahhough Bices- it discusses also the uses to which they were ter, its market town, is an ancient road junc- put. It has therefore something to offer to the tion, the Hundred is remote, and came into historian who is interested in the mechaniza- public notice only in times of crisis, which is tion of agriculture during the past century. why the district was pounced with skirmishes The plates are useful, with a gorgeous frontis- in the Civil War, and why Bayard's Green in piece in full colour; and the book is admirably Stoke Lyne parish was a tournament ground, produced. and a great place for baronial intrigue, in the JACK SIMMONS days before tournaments were made spec- tacular and respectable. Neither the Oxford AGRICULTURALECONOMICS RESEARCHINSTI- canal, completed in 179o, nor the railways TUTE. The Agricultural Register, New made much impression outside the Cherwell Series. Changes in the Economic Pattern, valley; apart from some quarrying and fishing x957- 9. Oxford University Press, I96O. the Hundred's staple was agriculture, and xii+ I48 pp. 25s. until the twentieth century its society stayed This useful compilation is the second of the sharply divided between the parks and houses post-war series and follows much the same of its improving landlords and celebrated pattern as its predecessor. It has chapters on fox-hunters, and the village life so ably and agricultural policy including the small farm movingly described in Flora Thompson's scheme launched in 1959; on marketing and Lark Rise and Over to Candleford. Now, with prices of the main products, including fruit the United States Air Force at Heyford, and and vegetables; and a general account of the a variety of other camps and bases spilling place of agriculture in the British economy, into Bullingdon Hundred, things are not as well as summaries of current information what they used to be. on rents, wages, employment, and other in- The Hundred's agrarian history follows an puts. appropriately traditional pattern. There is Mr Frankel, the main author, has included evidence of pagan Saxon settlement at Odd- much detail which is only of indirect concern ington and elsewhere, and then of a gradual to British agriculture, such as the internation- extension of the cultivated land that continued al agreements on wheat and sugar, and the into the thirteenth century. There were often 124 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW two open fields made three before the six- has an essay on economic and social history teenth century; at Fritwell there were even- which sketches what is known of its farming; tually seven, and at Islip six, but at Fringford there are good field maps, and some pleasant strips and closes lay in one apparently un- illustrations. The introductory chapter on the differentiated maze until 1762. The Black Hundred is a little more general this time, al- Death did severe damage; Tusmore seems to though it is still overloaded with administra- have been depopulated by 1358, when it was tive history; there is some geology, which is emparked, and even conservative landlords an improvement, but the railways and the like the abbot of Westminster, lord of Islip, Oxford canal would be better noticed there had to grant leases and copyholds to their than under the parishes, and so would the restless tenants. Charlton, where the plague pattern of settlement. Certainly the book can- caused fewer deaths, steadily lost its villeins not be wished more expensive, even though by flight in the fifteenth century, and their its price represents a mere three shillings a lands were eventually absorbed by free- parish, and if it were to be longer, then the holders. Yet almost all the surviving medieval extra space might best be given to longer churches contain fifteenth-century work; the quotations from Flora Thompson. If, after all, land was not a desert. There was some the reader wants to know what it felt like to consolidation and private enclosure in the live in Ploughley Hundred in the i88o's, sixteenth century--enough to provoke an Lark Rise is still his book. abortive rising at Hampton Gay in 1596- GEOFFREY MARTIN and sheep farms multiplied, but most of the ground remained arable until the great age of H. CECIL PAWSON, Cockle Park Farm. An parliamentary enclosure, the latest act being Account of the Work of the Cockle Park that for Charlton, in 1858. Experimental Station from z896 to z956. Despite the longer courses of rotation that Oxford University Press for the University multiple fields allowed, the arable showed of Durham, i96o. xiv-l-26z pp. 35s. net. signs of strain in the seventeenth century, Cockle Park Farm of 461 acres became the when sainfoin was widely introduced to Northumberland County Agricultural Ex- relieve the soil. The improving landlords, periment Station in 1896, and in 1917 6o squires and rectors, who seized their chance acres adjoining, known as Paradise Farm, after enclosure, often turned to dairy-farming were added. Both were in poor condition and stock-rearing, with root crops and a when they were taken over, and, even in 1917, Norfolk course on the dwindling arable. This the rent paid to the landlord, the duke of was the normal pattern round Bicester, where Portland, was only I Is. iod. an acre. In 1938, the market flourished until the early eigh- in order to facilitate arrangements for build- teenth century, when the butter in which local ing improvements, the whole was bought on estates began to specialize went to London by a 999 years' lease for £8,ooo. With the re- wagon; the town's cattle markets continued organization of the agricultural advisory ser- to prosper, but its general market declined in vice after the war, the Station was handed the face of plenty. So did the fortunes of the over in I947 to King's College, Newcastle, poor; the Bicester Emigration Committee by whom it has been administered ever since. even sent i 11 of them to Liverpool in carts, The subject of this review covers the whole en route for the United States on the rate- sixty years of the Station's existence, practi- payers' money, but many of them worked cally up to the present time. It is written by their way back to destitution in Oxfordshire Professor H. C. Pawson who has been as- rather than perish in Eden. sociated with it personally for the last forty This volume of the Victoria History fol- years, and in whose affections it obviously lows the satisfactory pattern of its predecessor occupies the position of a favourite child. (reviewed supra, vI, pp. I i7-18 ). Each parish According to him, the book "presumes to be

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;ii:i BOOK REVIEWS 125 history," and it is on this presumption that it hundred-year-old peel tower (a note on which can stake its claim for notice by agricultural appears as an appendix), and the biographies historians. In fact, however, 188 of its total of of the Station's first three directors. Each of 262 pages are a description of the Station's these came from across the Border from experiments during this period, and it is hard farming stock, and it is possibly because of to believe that their contribution to agri- this that the early experiments at Cockle Park cultural knowledge is primarily historical. At were related so closely to the financial side the same time, they provide a first-class of farming. In addition, the times were de- record of the experiments on which the pressed and the findings of science were un- Station has built its reputation, and they re- likely to be followed in practice unless it could mind the reader that these deal not only with be proved beyond reasonable doubt that they basic slag and wild white clover but with other would be successful financially. Somerville subjects extending over the whole range of was fortunate in having chosen the application arable crops, of cattle and sheep, and even of of phosphate (in basic slag) to poor grass land horticulture and forestry. By I954 there were for his main experiments, for the results were no fewer than 1,5oo plots running simul- spectacular in spite of the limitations of taneously. finance and staff under which he laboured. No agricultural historian can read this book But after three years at Cockle Park he without profit. The contrast between the left for Cambridge, and was succeeded by emphasis on basic slag for enriching the Middleton. Middleton's time there was short, nitrogen content of the soil through clovers too, and he was effective mainly in carrying sixty years ago and the present-day reliance on and extending the work Somerville had on synthetic nitrogen is an outstanding ex- initiated. Middleton had already made a name ample of change. The idea that silage can pro- for himself in India before he came to vide an additional source of protein instead Northumberland, and he had a distinguished of merely replacing roots has a more recent career subsequently at Cambridge and at the origin. But the fact that experimental plots of Board of Agriculture. But he spent long wheat were yielding up to 6o bushels per enough at Cockle Park for the fine scientific acre in I9o 5 and over 3 ° cwt in the 'thirties approach which he possessed to be recog- indicates that today's yields have been attain- nized by his colleagues and successors. able for many years under suitable conditions. Gilchrist, the third of the trio, made In some other ways we have made remarkably Cockle Park his lifetime's work and interest. little progress. Very early in his tenure of His best known contribution to improved office Gilchrist found that there were big farming was the seeds mixture incorporating variations in the amounts of dry matter in wild white clover, which made Cockle Park swedes, due largely to variety, season, and a worldwide name. In the Foreword, Sir soil. At Cockle Park 8 tons of swedes grown John Russell writes that Gilchrist failed to in i9o 4 had as much feeding value as i i~- tons receive the rewards that his work entitled him grown m 19oI. Yet the only tables of feeding- to. It was too empirical to attract the notice stuffs composition generally available to re- of universities, while the State bestows its search workers today give a single analysis for houours not on professors of agriculture as swedes, with no indication what the devia- such. Somerville and Middleton both re- tions from it may be. This example draws ceived knighthoods, but they had left Cockle attention to the lack of scientific data which Park first, and they achieved fame in govern- handicaps so much agricultural research at mental work as well as in academic research. the present time. The illustrations, which add to the pleasure From the historian's point of view much of reading the book, include a photograph the most interesting parts of the book deal each of Somerville, Middleton, and Gilchrist. with the history of the Station itself, the five- Somerville's is a reproduction of a painting i:! 126 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW i, presented to him in 1923 by the Oxford Uni- away, took a full day and involved a train :+i versity Plough Club. As those who can re- journey to Morpeth and a 4½-miles trap or member him personally must now be con- horse-charabanc ride, and must have re- fined to his Oxford acquaintances, this choice quired a considerably greater sacrifice of the is a particularly happy one. King's College students' time than is in- For the rest, the references to prices and volved today. Communications with the Col- other conditions at the beginning of the cen- lege had to be by letter and a bedroom was tury make an interesting comparison with reserved for the use, when he required it, of those of today. There were instances of wheat the Scientific Director. Cockle Park Farm is being sold at i8s. a quarter, of rents at less not a history book, but there is a lot of history than ios. an acre, and linseed cake at £8 5s. a in it. Moreover, the new emphasis on animal ton. The value of a calf was put at 4os. and husbandry at Cockle Park is rapidly banishing cattle were usually valued at between 3os. those experiments which this book relates to and 4os. acwt. Forty years ago a visit from the realm of history. Newcastle to Cockle Park, nineteen miles W. HARWOODLONG

Periodicals Received AGRICULTURAL HISTORY. Agricultural His- HISTORIA AGRICULTURAE. Yearbook of the tory Society. Edited at the University of Netherlands Institute for Agricultural His- Illinois.Volume XXXlii, No. 4, October 1959. tory. Volume IV, 1957 . Wayne D. Rasmussen, Forty Years of R. W. Kijlstra, World bibliography of Agricultural History. books and articles on agricultural history pub- ANNALES DE GEMBLOUX. Association des lished in 1954. Ing6nieurs Sortis de l'Institut Agrono- J. M. G. van der Poel, Description of the mique de l'Etat h Gembloux, Bruxelles. farms in Friesland on the clay soil with some Volume 65, No. 4, 1959. observations about the cattle-plague and the R. Georletce, Les soddtds d' agriculture, en vaccination of the calves. France, dam la seconde moitid du XVII1 ~ J. M. G. van der Poel, An early nine- si~ck. teentk-century description of farming on the DANMARKS NATIONALMUSEETSARBEJDSMARK. islands of ttoekse Waard. Copenhagen. 1959. INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURALECONO- Hans Helb~ek, Pd Markvandri~g gennem MICS. Organ of the Indian Society of Agri- Oldtidens Agre. cultural Economics. Volume xIv, No. 3, FOLK-LIV. Acta Ethnologica et Folkloristica July-September I959. Europaea, Stockholm. Volume xxI-xxII, JOURNALOF LAW AND ECONOMICS.University 1957-8. of Chicago Law School. Volume r, October Anders Nyman, Hay harvesting methods 1958. on the F(eroe Islands. D. Gale Johnson, Government and Agri- Axel Steensberg, Parallel ploughing with culture: Is Agriculture a Special Case? alternately sloping and upright ard in Colu- Volume II, October 1959. mella. LAND ECONOMICS. Madison, Wisconsin. Vol- GWERIN. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Volume ume xxxv, No. 2, May 1959. II, No. 3, June 1959. Edmundo Flores. The Significance of Ffrancis G. Payne, The retention of simple Land- Use Changes in the Economic Develop- agricultural techniques. ment of Mexico. !i:1 I'

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?Ji ,i ~ :. PERIODICALS RECEIVED 127 SCOTTISH STUDIES. Journal of the School of RURAL SOCIOLOGYABSTRACTS. North Hol- Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh. land Publishing Co., Amsterdam. Volume Volume III, pt. z, I959. I, No. I, April i959. Eric Cregeen, Recollectio~u of an Argyll- SocI OLOGIARURALI S. Journal of the European shire Drover. Society for Rural Sociology. Vol. I, No. I, Ian Whitaker, Some Traditional Tech- Spring, I96o. R. van Gorcum Ltd, Assen, niques in Modern Scottish Farming. Holland. WORLD AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND ULSTER FOLKLIFE.Vol. V, I959.