DESCRIPTION OF COUNTY - BACKWARD STATE OF AGRICULTURE - TENURE - "CUSTOM" OF THE COUNTY - SAID TO PROMOTE FRAUD AMONG THE FARMERS - NUMEROUS BODY OF LAND-VALUERS UNFAVOURABLE TO MUTAL CONFIDENCE BETWEEN LANDLORD AND TENANT - STATE OF AGRICULTURE NEAR GUILDFORD - VALLEY OF THE WEY - ALBURY - PREJUDICES OF FARMERS NEAR REIGATE - EXCELLENT MANAGEMENT OF A BUTTER-DAIRY - WEALD FARMING, MEAGRE RESULTS - PRIMITIVE BARN IMPLEMENT - SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT - EXTENT AND RENT OF FARMS - WANT OF INTELLIGENCE AMONG FARMERS - WAGES - INFLUENCE OF RAILWAYS IN LESSERING PRESSURE OF RATES - EFFECT OF TENANT RIGHT IN DEPRESSING RENTS.
REIGATE, MARCH 1850
Surrey, described by Cobbett as on the "sunny side of London" is one of the warmest and driest counties in England. With many varieties of soil, and immediate contiguity to London, and with every facility which railway or road can offer, the farmers of this county possess advantages of no common kind. Excepting the Weald, the face of the county presents a pleasing variety of surface. In the vales, the deep lanes and lofty hedgerow trees remind one of Devonshire; the bare uplands of the chalk hills recall the open downs of Dorset; while rich woodlands match those of Berks or Hampshire. From Guildford to Dorking we pass along a picturesque road, hills rising on either hand wooded along their summits, and with frequent hedgerows dividing their sunny slopes; large sombre yew trees in great numbers interspersed through the fields giving a peculiar aspect to the scene.
The soils include clay, loam, chalk and heath. The Weald of Surrey, occupying the whole of the flat district on the southern boundary of the county, and forming part of the extensive Wealden tract which stretches over the adjoining counties of Sussex and Kent, is a cold retentive clay on a clay subsoil. To the north of this is a district of sandy loam, on the green-sand formation, with blowing sands on the hill tops. The chalk hills stretch from east to west through the centre of the county, with a breadth of some miles on the Kentish side, gradually diminishing towards Hampshire. Approaching the Thames the soil is sandy, with loam and clay intermixed. The north-western corner of Bagshot is a moorish soil, with a considerable extent of barren heath.
Near the points of junction of these different tracts, the soil varies so considerably that, on the same farm and in contiguous fields, the systems of management are very different. In the immediate neighbourhood of Guildford there are clay, chalk, moor, and sandy soils, some very superior and some very inferior in quality. However various the soil, its cultivation exhibits too great uniformity in one respect - the absence of enterprise. Throughout the county, neglect and mismanagement are apparent; and the general features of its agriculture betray a low scale of intelligence and a small amount of capital and industry. The denizen of the metropolis, if in quest of rural scenery untouched by the hand of modern improvement, need not journey for it to the remote parts of the kingdom. An hour and a half's ride from London will set him down at the Gompsal station of Reigate and Guildford Railway, where a short half-hour's walk will exhibit to him a state of rural management as completely neglected as he is likely to meet with in remotest parts of the island. He will there see undrained marshes, ill-kept roads, untrimmed hedges, rickety farm buildings, shabby-looking cows of various breeds, dirty cottages - nothing indeed exhibiting care or attention, except covered drains from the farmyards, which ostentatiously discharge the richest part of the manure into the open ditches by the wayside.
The relations subsisting between landlord and tenant will be found to explain, in some degree, the backward state of agriculture in Surrey. Farms are principally held on yearly tenures, though leases of 7 to 14 years duration are not uncommon. The landlords are not the parities who object to leases, but the tenants, from the "custom" of the county presently to be described, have a practical security of possession not inferior to a lease. This custom is somewhat of the nature of "compensation for unexhausted improvements", with the difference, that it embraces also large payments for imaginary improvements and alleged operations, which, even if they had ever been performed, would be more injurious than beneficial. Under this custom the outgoing tenant, receives from his successor the amount of valuation, which includes "dressings and half dressings of dung and lime, and sheep foldings, the expense of ploughings and fallows, including the rent and taxes of the fallows, half fallows and lays, the value of seeds, the underwoods down to stem, hay and straw at a feeding price," and other items greater or less in proportion to the expertness of the out-going tenant's appraiser. This practice is described before the Parliamentary Committee of 1848 by Mr Robert Clutton, an experienced land agent in Surrey, as "promoting an extensive system of fraud and falsehood among the farmers." He says:
"Where manure has been put on at a distance of time, it is exceedingly difficult to check the quantity or quality of the dressings; and we find that very false returns are made of it, both in respect to quantity and quality. Outgoing tenants 'work up to a quitting' - that is, they work out the farm, and put in inferior manure, in order to receive payment for it as if it were of good quality. Having been so imposed upon in starting, they feel justified in playing the same tricks upon quitting. There is not much difficulty in ascertaining the value of the manure while it is in the yard, but there is a great deal of difficulty in ascertaining its value after it has been carried out and mixed with the soil. Even when no crop has been taken this is the case; and the difficulty is increased, of course, with half-dressings. A disposition has arisen among the tenantry to lessen their payments in this respect by getting their landlord to buy up their dressings and half-dressings. I have found that appraisers are appointed by farmers to go over their farms and tell them how to make a high valuation, and this has been found practically to limit the choice of tenants and to lock up their capital. The tendency in Surrey has been to lower the rent of farms, as compared with other parts of England, and to have the same money paid for bad as for good farming."
These objections, it will be observed, apply more to the manner in which the custom is exercised, than to the justice of the principle of compensation for unexhausted improvements. The information we received confirms this evidence, and the demoralising influence of such a practice on the conduct of the farmers, in their relations with their landlords and each other, is just what might be naturally expected. In every little town in the county, the brass plates on the doors which are biggest and brightest and most numerous, are those of the land-valuers and appraisers; the rapid increase of which class is deprecated by the most intelligent farmers as equally injurious to the owner and occupier. With a business which can thrive only by promoting constant changes from farm to farm, which encourages an involvement of claims, having tendency from their embarrassing character to destroy confidence between landlord and tenant, preying upon the capital of the entering farmer, and rendering it necessary for the landlord in self-defence to commit his interests to their charge, they interpose injuriously between the landlord and his tenants, and close the door against that individual responsibility and personal communication which a proprietor can never neglect without injury to his estate.
The neighbourhood of Guildford supplies various examples of husbandry. The clay lands on the hill-sides, in many cases, still undergo the process of naked fallow, tile drainage not yet having been so extensively adopted as its importance on such soil renders necessary. On the chalk-lands the usual husbandry described in other counties is here adopted; but, as the farms seldom exceed 500 acres, and generally run from 200 to 300, more care and minute attention to details secure better returns. Oilcake is used for feeding the stock to some extent, and artificial manures for increasing the green crops; so that the returns of wheat may be reckoned on the average at nearly 28 bushels, and of barley 40 bushels, while the average of sheep stock is 1 ½ per acre.
On the sides of the valley sloping to the Wye, the operations of the farmer are much impeded by small enclosures and hedgerow timber, though on all sides indications are here afforded that landlords are now giving way on this point. Generally speaking, these sloping fields are greatly injured by water, and there did not appear to be much drainage going on. The style of agriculture is, therefore, very defective, when the quality of the soil and the conveniences of the situation are taken into account. Along the Wey the land is a deep sandy loam, much of it in pasture, but much also under tillage. The foul appearance of many of the winter fallows, the paltry green crops, and the old-fashioned plans of ploughing so generally adhered to, indicate a very backward state of husbandry; while the neglected state of the farm-roads and farm-buildings is in perfect keeping with the implements and the stock. Draining, generally too shallow, is here followed to some extent on most farms; but very seldom does there seem to be proper accommodation provided for the milch cows or their produce.
At Albury we turned into the farmyard of Mr. Drummond M.P., of whose agricultural improvements we had heard at Guildford. The buildings are constructed somewhat on Mr. Huxtable's plan, all the animals being stall-fed and placed upon boards. Covered houses for dung, and tanks for storing the liquid, are provided. The houses were in good order, and the animals seemed to be very healthy and thriving, but we should fear that in the heat of summer the houses, which present an enormous surface of dull black roofing, would be unwholesomely warm. We would venture to suggest to Mr. Drummond that he should try the effects of a thin lining of thatch straw (which Mr. Huxtable finds the best equalizer of temperature), or even a good outside coating of whitewash, which would reflect, instead of absorbing, the piercing rays of the Surrey sun. The soil here is a light sand, wearing probably its best aspect at this season, as it must be very subject to injury by drought in summer.
On one farm we found a butter dairy of 40 cows, from which the farmer derived a larger and less fluctuating return than from any other branch of his business. In this case, however, the cows are not suffered to stand exposed among filth and wet in an open yard, as is usual in this county, the farmer having, in default of his landlord making the fair and necessary outlay, built substantial cow-houses at his own cost. In these the cows are fed in stalls, each animal receiving, besides hay, three fourths of a bushel of brewers grains and a supply of mangold daily; and it may be instructive to the dairy farmers of the south-western counties, who despair of producing a marketable article with such feeding, to know that the butter produced on this farm is supplied by contract to one of the first hotels in Brighton and to another in London, the tastes of the frequenters of which are likely to be sufficiently fastidious. The contract price is 1s. 4d. per pound in winter, and 1s. 2d. in summer.
That portion of the Weald which we have examined in Surrey is for the most part a stiff wet clay, becoming at intervals more loamy and friable, and rising in some instances to food stock and green crop farms. Being naturally very difficult to manage profitably, it has for a series of years been gradually deteriorating under the present management, and while it yields scarcely a subsistence to the cultivator, it affords a scanty rent to the owner and a niggard supply of work to the labourer. The system of cultivation is begun by a bare summer fallow, the ground being as carefully managed as its undrained state admits, and then dunged with such manure as the farm produces, and limed, if the farmer can afford the expense. The wheat is then sown, the fields being ploughed in "lands", so as to admit the horses in drawing the harrows to pass up the open furrows without trampling the rest of the land. The crop reaped after this preparation varies from 12 to 20 bushels an acre. Four or five crops then follow, according to the taste of the cultivator, whose study is how to get from the soil, at the least expense, the different qualities it may have imbibed or accumulated during the year of bare fallow. When it is clearly ascertained that these are thoroughly exhausted, the land is again bare fallowed. Scarcely any stock worth mentioning is kept on these farms. The implements used are of the rudest kind; the barn implements in an especial degree, the use of the common barn winnowing machine being frequently unknown. Its place is supplied by sacks nailed to four horizontal spars, which are fixed on a pivot at both ends, and when turned briskly round get up a breeze of wind, in which the corn is riddled by hand, and the chaff blown away! Under such a system it is quite impossible that this land can long continue in cultivation. The first improvement necessary is thorough drainage, and after that is accomplished we should expect much assistance in the further development of its resources by the facilities of communication afforded by the several lines of railway which traverse it. We should anticipate great benefit to the texture of the soil by heavy applications of chalk, which might be brought along the line from the nearest chalk cuttings, and if the railway companies would co-operate with the farmer, it might be worth his while to bring down from London large quantities of the cheapest manure, - coal ashes and street sweepings, to be laid on in heavy doses, in the hope that by this management the soil might gradually be rendered friable, and suitable for the production of green crops as well as corn. This no doubt contemplates much outlay of capital; but when regard is had to the impossibility of things going on as they are at present, and to the advantages this tract enjoys in being little more than an hour distant from London, we have no doubt the experiment, in good hands, would prove successful. This soil, if dry, and if its texture can be altered so as to admit of being kept clean under constant tillage, possesses a strength and depth of staple which count not be easily exhausted.
The farms are from 50 to 200 acres in extent, and are let at from 5s. to 15s. an acre, of rent, to a class of men whose families, though they may shift from farm to farm, have been located in the district for many generations. In intelligence and education, they are extremely deficient; many of them, as we were told, being scarcely able to sign their own names. The efforts of their landlords, some of whom are anxious to promote drainage and other fundamental improvements, are greatly frustrated by the prejudices of such a class of tenantry. Not a few of them are now two years in arrear of rent, and all are every day becoming less able to meet those increased outlays by which alone larger crops can be produced, and diminished prices compensated.
Labourers wages in Surrey are from 9s. to 10s. Taskwork is very common, and 12s. a-week is often earned. Cottage rents are high, varying from 1s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. a-week, with very little garden ground. The cottages on farms are sometimes held by labourers direct from the landlord, in others, they go with the farm. Beer is generally given in hay and harvest-time, but there is no rule on the subject. Many farmers are reverting to the custom of keeping the farm servants more in the farmhouse, the low price of corn and meat rendering this the cheapest plan they can now adopt. Besides the facilities which they afford, the railways, by sharing the burden, have exercised a very beneficial influence on the "rates" of the parishes through which they pass. Poor-rates and highway-rates in some parishes are, from this cause, extremely moderate.
The chief complaint among the farmers themselves, apart from that of low prices, was the heavy burden of the tithe. The unfair character of some of the payments claimed by the out-going tenant from his successor, which have already been referred to, was also mentioned as a heavy tax on a farmer's capital. One fact arising from this "tenant right" in Surrey is that there is less competition for farms and a more moderate scale of rent than we have met with in other counties; but we are bound to add that these advantages have not contributed to better cultivation, as we should have anticipated. Incapable of appreciating the advantages of their proximity to the best market in the world, within a distance varying from 10 to 30 miles of London, with railway accommodation if they choose, with a soil and climate adapted for the production of the earliest vegetables of every kind for the use of the table, the great body of the Surrey farmers follow a system suited to farms 500 miles distant from the metropolis, where it is necessary to convert every thing the land produces into the least bulky form for cheap transit, so that the produce of two acres of wheat may be condensed into a ton weight, and the whole green crop of the farm be packed up and borne to market, after being digested, in the living bodies of the sheep stock.
Extract from Caird's English Agriculture in 1850 - 1851 by James Caird, Esq. The Times Commissioner. Second edition Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1852. Letter XV. Surrey p. 117 - 125.