Note 228 — Chapter III · THE PEASANTRY (continued)

Norden, The Surveyor’s Dialogue. He is speaking of parts of Somersetshire. “Now I say if this sweet country of Tandeane and the western part of Somersetshire be not degenerated, surely, as their land is fruitful by nature, so doe they their best by art and industrie ... they take extraordinary pains in soyling, plowing, and dressing their land.... After the plough there goeth some 3 or 4 with mattocks to break the clods ... they have sometimes and in some places foure, five, six, eight, yea tenne quarters in an ordinary acre.” For Walter of Henley’s figures see Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 437–438. Gregory King at the end of the seventeenth century estimated the average yield “in a year of moderate plenty" at a little more than 11 bushels (Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. v. pp. 92 and 783). I quote Norden not as giving what was general, but to show what it was thought could be done.