the agricultural surveyor, by a respectable individual, correctly expresses the sentiment prevailing in the county:-" the fashionable scarifiers and scufflers of London have been tried and exploded. Where the staple of the land is thin, and the sub-soil uncultivated, it must be by degrees only that it can be rendered fit for cultivation, and that by plowing occasionally deeper, and fertilizing the soil in the interim. The operation of the scuffler is to move the two sorts of soil before fertilization of the subsoil: and hence the lands so used become a crop of weeds." As the above named implements are, however, only of late introduction, it is very probable that the opinion of the county may alter, and then a future writer will be sanctioned in advancing quite as many arguments in their favour. Skim-coulters are used by some agriculturists, and seem to be rather approved when the land is not flinty. Threshing-mills are stated by Mr. Young to be frequent when he made his survey, and since that period they have spread with increased rapidity. Indeed, it seems likely that they will, in the course of a very few years, entirely supplant that rude and wasteful instrument the flail, on every farm of consequence. The horse-hoe is far from being in common use, though it is occasionally found in some districts *.

LEASES, RENT, TITHE, &c.

Leases, or agreements between the landlord and tenant for the latter to take the usufruct of the land for a stipulated term of years, and no longer, at a prescribed ratio of recompense, appear to have chiefly grown into custom within the last century. Previous to that period the landholders retained too much of the dig

nity

Mr. Young, Agri. Sur. p. 75, says that "he could not find a horse-hoe in the county," which is a surprising circumstance, since his correspondent, Mr. Lowndes of Brightwell Grove, assures him that the horse-hoe husbandry is well known in his neighbourhood. In the vicinage of Woodstock, of Witney, and in several of the south-western parts of Oxfordshire, he might also have met with the practice.

nity of chivalrous knighthood, to regard their tenants as any other than a relic of the villains of the feudal system; and with such a subordinate class they scorned to enter into any resemblance of an immutable, though just, compact. With the extension of commerce, and the improvement of agriculture, a new character of opinion took place. When the tenant found that an enlarged system of agricultural operation required an investment of capital, he, naturally, demanded a security for the deposit. This suggestion removed the honourable tie which had, for so many ages, caused the landlord to look on the husbandmen of his district as the natural children of his patrimony; and he immediately began to treat with them as man opposed to man, in a commercial point of view. Thus the tenant at first appeared to gain a benefit; but, when once the spirit of commercial calculation was introduced between himself and his lord, the ancient bond, involving humility on the one part, and dignified patronage on the other, was at an end. The land became a marketable commodity, and the terms on which a new bargain was procured must depend on the temperature of the national exchange. This alteration of principle has led to a dangerous predicament. The associating link of supremacy and deference once severed, the landlord wants to proceed a step farther. He wishes to possess tenants without a lease, yet tenants for whom he does not feel that paternal sentiment of patronage, cherished by his predecessors. The evils of this contingency are felt in most counties, but in none more than in Oxfordshire.

Some few individuals may be found who grant leases for fourteen, or even for twenty-one years; but, in general, seven years form the extent of the allotted term. "In the neighbourhood of Chippingnorton none are granted, or what are next to none. The longest is six years, prescribing the six crops; but, more commonly, nothing more than an agreement, voidable in many cases at six months' notice." * Many of the great landholders, in all parts of the county, will grant no lease whatever; and, in several districts,

Young's Agri. Sur. p. 68.

districts, the tenant is happy to avail himself of a permission to cultivate with legal security the four crops usually successive on his land. This system of intended private aggrandizement assuredly operates prejudicially on the public weal. It is a common opinion in Oxfordshire, that land worth twenty shillings per annum without a lease would be worth thirty shillings if secured to the use of the cultivator for a term of twenty-one years. It is evident, that this increased value can only arise from the extra quantity of grain, or marketable food, produced by the practice of secure tillage. Every circumstance connected with agriculture moves in slow progress. The day must, undoubtedly, come when the Oxfordshire landlord and renter will perceive that the advancement of public benefit is a mutual accommodation to themselves.

"The

The farms vary much in size; but, in general character, they are not so large as in most other parts of England. largest farms in the rich Thame District do not usually exceed 300 acres. About Stoken-ash there are none capable of maintaining more than 200, or 300, sheep. For some miles around Blenheim, farms are in general from 100 to 500 acres. "* Το this it may be added, that there are many farms in the Forest Division so small as not to pay more rent than twenty pounds per annum. It must be obvious, that it is very difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to form a just notion of the prevailing rent in a county. The price paid for the use of land depends much on many peculiar circumstances; among which the number of acres rented, and the existence or non-existence of a lease, hold the principal rank. Young conjectures the following to be the proportion of rents in 1807 :-The red land thirty shillings, stonebrash twenty shillings, Chiltern sixteen shillings, and miscellaneous twenty-five shillings. According to this statement the average is 22s. 10d. per acre, and the whole rental of the county 543,2971. Is. 6d. But it is probable that, since that period, rent has

*Young, p. 30.

has risen throughout the whole county at least in the proportion of one-fifth part. In the year 1768, the average rent of inclosed lands was supposed to be twenty shillings, and that of open fields nine shillings per acre.

"A few

The tithe of Oxfordshire is of various descriptions. rectors have one in fifteen, and others one in twenty. This arose from varied endowments; half the tithe was settled on the rector, and the other half, perhaps, given to some religious house; and, on the suppression, came into lay-hands. That the tithes came from the land-owner appears from the manor-farm, and that only, being in so many cases tithe-free.” * Tithe is seldom taken in kind, and the usual rate of composition for arable land fairly let may, perhaps, be stated at one-fourth of the rent.

PROGRESS OF INCLOSING, WASTES, &c.

Except the dreary district termed Otmoor, and the extensive wilds appertaining to the forest of Whichwood, the waste land of Oxfordshire is comparatively small. The common of Otmoor is situate near Islip, and contains about 4000 acres, the whole of which lie nearly on a level, and are completely inundated in wet seasons. Eight adjoining townships possess a right of commonage on this dismal tract; but, as this right is possessed without stint, the abuses are very great, and many cattle are placed there, to feed which really belong to persons who have no privilege to reap benefit from the waste. The soil of the common is a good loam, and if inclosed, drained, and duly managed, would undoubtedly prove highly amenable to the purposes of agriculture. The operation of draining might be effected with much ease; for though the moor appears level to the eye there is, really, a sufficient inequality of surface to cause the waters to draw down to one particular part; and the river Ray runs directly across it. The herbage, which shoots up, in seeming luxuriance, during the

summer

* Agri. Sur. p. 40.

summer months, is rank, and not only very apt to rot sheep*, but is productive of a peculiar distemper among the larger cattle called in the neighbourhood the moor-evil. The cottager appears to reap the greatest benefit from Otmoor. He turns out little except geese; and the coarse, aquatic, sward of this waste is well suited to the wants and constitution of his flock. The disgusting effluvia arising from the weedy recesses of this large tract would seem likely to tend much towards the injury of human health; yet it does not appear that intermittents are nearly so frequent in the vicinage as might be apprehended. Some judicious individuals projected, a few years back, the inclosure of Otmoor; but the plan met with much local opposition, and was at length abandoned.

In the purlieus of Whichwood Forest there are extensive tracts of waste ground, the commonage of which is confined, by right, to horses and sheep; but the instances of illegal assumption are numerous, and cattle of almost every description may be seen nearly in every part. The soil of the forest is generally either the red loam, or the stonebrash so frequent in the county.

The other commons of Oxfordshire are chiefly to be found among the Chiltern hills, in districts which, though denuded, are too steep for the plough; and in the northern part of the county, where there are many ranges of Down-land appropriated to the pasturage of young cattle, or (in some few instances) to that of oxen used for the purpose of tillage.

The system of inclosing has been encouraged, as was before observed, to a considerable extent. The inclosures in the first forty years of his present majesty's reign amounted in number to forty-one, and in quantity of land to 68,480 acres †.

Since which

• An instance is mentioned in Young's Agricultural Survey of one farmer who turned seventeen score of sheep to graze on this common, the whole of which he lost by the rot, except three. In the same work it is said that cattle benefit about twenty shillings per head (independent of the hazard of loss through disease) by a summer's pasturage.

+ Young, p. 88.