Читать книгу The Industrial History of England - Henry de Beltgens Gibbins - Страница 47

—A great increase of sheep farming took place after the Great Plague (1348), and this from two causes. The rapid increase of woollen manufactures promoted by Edward III. rendered wool growing more profitable, while at the same time the scarcity of labour, occasioned by the ravages of the Black Death, and the consequently higher wages demanded, naturally attracted the farmer to an industry which was at once very profitable, and required but little paid labour. So, after the Plague, we find a tendency among large agriculturists to turn ploughed fields into permanent pasture, or, at any rate, to use the same land for pasture and for crops, instead of turning portions of the “waste” into arable land. Consequently from the beginning of the fifteenth century we notice that the agricultural population decreases in proportion as sheep farming increases; and the steady change may be traced in numerous preventive statutes till we come (in 1536) to those of Henry VIII. about decayed towns, especially in the Midlands and the Isle of Wight, culminating in the excitements of 1549. Another cause that, in Henry VIII.’s time, had a distinct influence in promoting sheep farming, was the lack of capital that made itself felt, owing to the general impoverishment of England in his wasteful reign, and which naturally turned farmers to an industry that required little capital, but gave quick returns.