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VOLUME 25 I977 PART I SILVER JUBILEE ISSUE 'Twenty-five Years On' JOHN HIGC,S From the Colonies: a Tempered Tribute WILLIAM N. PARKr.,R Harvest Custonls and Labourers' Perquisites in Southern England, I 1.5o-I 35o: the corn harvest ANDREWJONrS Forestry and Agriculture in the Scottish Highlands 17oo-I 85o: A Problem of Estate Management J. M. LINDSAY The Development of Water Meadows in Dorset during the Seventeenth Century J. H. BETTEY Annual List and BricfR.cview of Articles on Agrarian History, I975 R.AINE MORGAN THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW VOLUME 25 PAR.T I • I977 Contents 'Twenty-five Years On' JOHN HIGGS pagc [ From the Colonies: a Tempered Tribute WILLIAM N. PARKER 6 Harvest Customs and Labourers' Perquisites in Southern England, I I 5o-I 35o: the corn harvest ANDREW JONES I'4 Forestry and Agriculture ill the Scottish Highlands I7OO- 185o: A Problem in Estate Management j. M. LINDSAY -.)"~" The Development of Water Meadows in Dorset during the Seventeenth Century j. H. BETTEY 37 Annual List and Brief R.eview of Articles oil Agrarian History, 1975 P, AINE MORGAN 44 Book P,.eviews: Tke Economy cf the Roman Empire: Quantitative StMies, by ILichard Duncan-Jones K. D. WHITF 53 Liable to Floods. VillageLandscape on the E4~e of tire Fens, AD 45 o- I85o, byJ. 12.. 1Lavensdale B. a. IIOLDERNI:,SS 54 Domesday Book: its Place in Administrative History, by V. t:I. Galbraith GEOFFREY TEMPLEMAN 5 J Lordship and Community: Battle Abbey and its Banliel~ 1066- U38, by Eleanor Searle I-L E. HALLAM 56 The Beaulieu CartularD ed. S. F. Hockey 1I. E. HALLAM 57 Surve), of a TtmusaM Years qf Beekeepinf in Russia, by Dorothy Galton BARBARA TODD 57 Field,york in Medieval Arcllaeolog),, by ChristopherTaylor M. W. BERESFORD 57 Man Made the Land: Essays in Eiglish Historical Geoeraph),, ed. A. P... H. Baker andJ. B. Harley 3). A. BAKER 5 ~ Tke Victoria History of the CornW of York, East Ridin{, Vol. II, Dickering Waloentake, ed. K.J. Allison ;.)AVID HEY 59 The Farmers qfl OId D;glaM, by Eric Kerridge JOAN THIRSK 59 Fanlily, Lineage aM Ci,)il Societ),. A Stud), cf Societ),, Politics aM Mentality in the Din'ham Re,~ion 15oo-164o, by MervynJames R. C. RICHARDSON 60 Rllral Change and Urban Grolvttl 150o-18oo. Essays in DL~lish Regional Histo~7 in honom"of W. G. Hoskins, ed. C. W. Chalklin and M. A. Haviuden D. C. COLEMAN 6I An EIglish Rural Commlmity: M),ddle raiderdie Tudors & Smarts, by David G. Hey J. A. CHARTRES 62 Market Gardeldl(q. Tile History of Commercial Fhm,er, Fruit amt Vegetable Grou,il(~;, by R.onald Wcbber MALCOLM THICK 62 John 8henven and Drug Cidtil,ation in El!field: a Re-examination, byJ. C. L. Burnby GEORGE ORDISH 63 (continued on page iii of cover) 'Twenty-five Years On' By JOHN HIGGS " ANOTH~.I~ society? A new review? A review subject in its own right the Society has helped /_ll competing for attention with the spate of many to gain a foot on the ladder. It has de- • lcontemporary letterpress, and a society liberately eschewed a popular approach to agri- demanding, in these days of cruelly straitened cultural history which, perhaps, some in the incomes, yet another guinea? The venture early days hoped it might take. It has rather might well seem foolhardy indeed; and when pttrsued a policy of sound historical scholarship it was first mooted, there were many who but has always encouraged the non-historian shook their heads in dismal anticipation of fail- who had a contribution to make. are. But those who believed that there was In its domestic affairs the Society has led a room and need for such a society spared no largely tranquil and trouble-fi'ee life for there effort to bring it into being; and it seems that have been no notable scandals. Any historian their faith is being rewarded. Already within a delving in the fairly voluminous ar&ives would few months of its foundation, the British find little on which to sharpen his sickle, oilier Agricultural History Society counts two than the odd letter from IZ. H. Tawney ex- hundred members, and at the moment when plaining why his subscription was in arrears or this first issue of its journal goes to press, there that in I96I the Treasurer and Secretary sup- is good hope that it will soon number many pressed the disreputable fact that those attend- more. ing the Almual Conference got free wine at the Thus opened the first--and indeed so far the expense of the Society. Occasionally, a frag- only--Editorial of THe. AGmCUr.Ttrr~ALHISTOI~Y ment of human feeling shines through the more R~vmw which appeared in Volume I for I953. formal ex&anges of views between officers, as The first twenty-five years have seen a steady, when the Editor writes to the Secretary: if not spectacular, increase in membership "Broadwater now have all the material for which now stands at about 80o, a figure not to what I personally regard as the dullest issue of be compared with distinguished contempor- the A.H.IK. dlat we have ever published. aries such as the Economic History Society or Owing to 'X's' excessive prolixity it runs to 64 the Royal Agricultural Society but comfort- pages without book reviews." Or simply, "Fri- able enough to enable us to publish two issues day I8th is all right... Let me know if you of the t~vI~w a year without raising the sub- would like to lunch on bread (home-baked) and scription to an unrealistic level. cheese and beer (home-brewed) at Sheffield It is difficult to kaiow how to judge the suc- Terrace," which perhaps contains a crumb of cess of a society other than from crude member- conffort for the social historian in that by 1959 ship statistics, but one might hazard a guess that the Editor did not make his own cheese. over the years ilfftuence, reputation, and re- The origins of the Society go back about a spectability have also grown. The Society has year before its official founding. Memory of the numbered among its members the foremos~ occasion is somewhat blurred and the ar&ives agricultural historians of the day, its meetings, are totally silent on the subject. A meeting took though never largely attended, have provided place in a rather unpleasant draughty room in an important forum for discussion, its Journal Holborn on a cold and wet spring morning in has become an essential source for agricultural I95:Z. It had been convened by G. E. Fussell historians, not only in this country but in many (later to be President of the B.A.H.S.), and was countries abroad; and in a period durbg which attended by a rather small handful of people. agricultural history has become an established The main object of the meeting was to consider THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW the formation of an agricultural history society. A few people had come to oppose the idea of In the event most of it was taken up by the late a society; some thought it would conflict with Jack Stratton, a distinguished Wiltshire farmer, the Economic History Society, while odlers seeking support for a new edition of T. H. argued that fotmding a new society could only Baker's Records of the Seasons, Prices of Agricul- detract from existing ones, and in the prevailing tural Produce, and Phenomena, Observed in the economic climate the time was not ripe. The British Isles, first published in z 883. great majority of speakers, however, wdeomed So anxious was Jack Stratton to a&ieve his the idea and expressed support for it, alld, pos- ambition that he dominated the meeting ahnost sibly since at that stage in the Society's history to the exclusion of other discussion--reading support cost nothing, the meeting closed with long extracts from Baker, and returning to the overwhelming agreement to go ahead withthe relationship between fanniug and the weather founding of a society. every time any proposal was made. In the face Before the close of the meeting a Provisional of this endearing monologist progress towards Committee was elected to bring tile Society the foundation of a society proved nearly as into being. The Chairman was Sir James Scott elusive .as progress towards the re-editing ot Watson, then Chief Scielltific Adviser to the Baker. However, agreement was reached, more Ministry of Agriculture, who played a decisive or less in the doorway, that a further meeting role in getting the Society laun &ed. The Secre- would be convened by Edgar Thomas and John tary was Jotm Higgs, then Keeper of the Higgs of the University of Reading at a later Museum of English Kurd Life at the Univer- date. Though it had no direct cmmection with sity oflLeading (thus starting a close association the forttmes of the Society, a rewrite of Baker between the Museum and the Society which appeared in z964 entitled Seasons and Prices by has continued ever since). The other members E. L. Jones. were Frank Atkinson, then Curator of the A further meeting to latmch the Society was Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle; G. E. held at the Science Musemn on z5 September Fussell, who even then was one of the best- z952, and dais meeting was attended by 420 kamwn writers on agricultural history; Alex- people--more by far than have ever attended ander Hay, then Secretary of the Association of any meeting of the Society since its foundation.

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