now, which was passed because the growing of sheep had become so profitable that many had engaged therein. It says: “Some have 24,000 sheep, some 20,000, some 10,000, some 6,000, some 4,000, and some more and some less.” And yet it alleged the price of wool had nearly doubled, “sheep being come to a few persons’ hands.” A penalty was therefore imposed on all who kept above 2000 sheep, and no person was to take in farm more than two tenements of husbandry. This attempt at “trust-busting” apparently did not work, for in 1597 it was necessary to enact a new statute that arable land made into sheep-pasture be returned to tillage, and no more arable land be devoted to pasture.
Literature of agriculture, prepared for the help of the farmer, dates back in England to the thirteenth century, and Thomas Tusser created so much interest in 1562 with a volume called “Five Hundred Points of Husbandry” that one hundred and twenty-five years afterward Lord Molesworth recommended that it be taught in the schools. The
