Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1898-02-17

Pruuucuon or wheat as It's main object,
and it has remained as part of the Eng
lsh granary from the days of Edward
the Confessor until those of Victoria.
Many of the wheat fields are far more
ancient than this, but the record of
Doomsday Book is a practical voucher
for period of 1000 years. The Gus
tom of the Saxon cultivators and the
evidence of local names are proof Of a
still greater antiquity of cultivation on
some of the best corn land; and beyond
the days of the Saxons lie the last two
centuries of Roman occupation. when
England was the great wheat-growing
country of the west, and supplied the
population of Rome with daily bread.
Perhaps the most interesting feature
of our ancestral corn lands is the small
degree in which their appearance can
have changed in course of ten or twelve
centuries. Their area is much greater
than in the old times, when villages
were separated by wide woodlands, and
only grouped and contiguous in nat
urally open country. The early Saxon
times were not daysin which men cared
to lay field to field. There was plenty
of ground available, and of this the
villagers cultivated and sowed with
corn as much as they needed fer their
years supply.
The fat, rich plain lies adjacent to a
row of old Saxon settlements under
the Downs, which are seen beyond the
plain. The men in each village went out
with their horses and plowed, sowcd
and harvested long narrow strip,
starting from the village or town. This
strip they called the Town Furlong."
and to this day the 1.OOo-year-old wheat
field is called "Tun Furlun." As they
had no turnips or beetroot, and no
great quantity Of hay, they could keep
few cattle and had little manure. Con-
sequently they had to leave their
Town Furlong" fallow for three years
to recover itself after the corn was
reaped. They plowed and sowed the
strip next to it in the following year.
and after that cultivated third, re-
turning in the fourth year to the orig
inal wheat field "One-third wheat and
two-thirds weeds" was the Anglo-SaXon
notion of high farming.
The next change in the appearance of
this smiling plain was caused by pri-
waite ownership. The common fields
were broken up into an infinite num-
Der of patches. marked by low banks
or boundary stones, and during several
centuries each peasant reaped his little
patches for his private store. In the
natural process by which these passed
into fewer hands The subdivision into
minute portions still held good; and it
was not until the great Enclosures Of the
end of the last century, 4 process which
was continued by obtaining special acts
of parliament well into the last reign,
that their holdings were joined together
and the patchwork system hanished
from our most ancient and most fertile
lands These then became the broad
acres. so justly famous, which have
held their own in the competition to
supply our daily bread after more re-
cent additions to our wheat lands have
relapsed to weeds and tkistles.
Their productiveness is astonishing.
From 30 to 40 bushels of wheat an acre
is the common yield of our English
cornfelGs. This natural fertility is
aided by special appliances which have
grown up round the ancient fields from
century to century.
Every acre has its corresponding
share Of fixed capital for its profitable
working. Special cottages for the
homes of the cultivators, barns and
buildings for crop and implements,
stables for the horses, yards for the
cattle and folds for the sheep, which
play their part in the chemistry Of mod
ern farming; good roads so made as TO
be accessible, if possible, from every
field, and network Of railways to bring
the wheat TO the centers of great cities
divided only by a few hours journey
from the fields and from each other
are all part Of the great ard costly
equipment of the English cornfields.-
London Country Life.