Abstract
The grain harvest was little changed from the Late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. This is demonstrated in this chapter through an analysis of information contained in a selection of eighteenth and nineteenth-century farming diaries from across Norfolk. Even though the county was at the forefront of the agricultural revolution and one of the most productive regions of England around 1800, a time of agricultural improvement and change, harvest method and technology had remained stable over the past centuries. A number of independent harvest date series from Norfolk are compared, they display similar harvest dates and trends, and hence as in the Middle Ages the grain harvest was triggered by a non-human factor, the phenological state of the grain development. The longest and most complete series from Langham, northern Norfolk, serves as a modern comparison series for the medieval harvest dates in the temperature reconstruction analysed in Chap. 5.
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Notes
- 1.
Jones, Seasons and prices, 125.
- 2.
Dickel, Beginn der Mähdruschernte, 75 and Jones, Seasons and prices, 126. The speed of the cutting the crops with a harvester greatly reduced the farmers’ vulnerability to weather.
- 3.
Dickel, Beginn der Mähdruschernte, 76–77. This might be less of a problem in English agriculture, since it is dominated by big farms operating with separate enclosed fields. Therefore a farmer might be more likely to afford a harvester on his own.
- 4.
Dickel, Beginn der Mähdruschernte,75–78 on the problems caused by the introduction of the mechanical harvesters. Možný et al., Cereal harvest dates, 816–817; harvest dates of the period 1501–2008 were analysed.
- 5.
Manley, The mean temperature of central England, 1698–1952, 242–261, and idem, Central England temperatures: monthly means 1659–1973.
- 6.
All these records are held by the NRO. Also checked for harvest dates were Cornelius Stovin, Journals of a Methodist farmer 1871–1875; Cozens-Hardy (ed.), Mary Hardy’s Diary; and Griffiths (ed.), William Windham’s Green Book, 1673–1688, but no harvest date information of sufficient length or frequency could be found.
- 7.
Farming diaries of Stephen Frost of Langham 1768–1816: NRO, MC 120/1-44, farming diaries of Thomas Rippingall 1817–1831: NRO, MC 120/45-57, farming diary of Thomas Rippingall and Rev. Stephen Frost Rippingall 1832: NRO, MC 120/58, farming diaries of Rev. Stephen Frost Rippingall 1833–1858: NRO, MC 120/61–85, personal diaries of William Rippingall 1859–1861: NRO, MC/120/121-123. The harvest book for the years 1847–1861/1867: NRO, MC 120/87.
- 8.
NRO, MC/120/26. Early cutting was mentioned and disapproved in Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 104–107.
- 9.
NRO, MC/120/32.
- 10.
Afton, Investigating agricultural production, 238.
- 11.
Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 9–12.
- 12.
Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 99–117.
- 13.
Marshall, Review of the reports to the Board of Agriculture, 347.
- 14.
Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 115–117.
- 15.
For example 1777: NRO, MC 120/10, 1781: NRO, MC 120/14, 1783: NRO, MC 120/15.
- 16.
Stephen Frost does usually not distinguish his wheat varieties in the harvest accounts, but occasionally mentions red wheat. It is likely that he sowed red and white wheat. Thomas Rippingall is more specific and refers regularly to red and white wheat. His successors hardly ever mention the variety of wheat in the harvest accounts. It can be assumed that red and white wheat were present at Langham farm between 1768 and 1867. According to a farmer cited in Lisle, Observations in husbandry, 132, red wheat that was sown at the same time as white wheat could be ripe a fortnight sooner. None of the Langham farmers distinguishes between red and white wheat with respect to cutting.
- 17.
Marshall, Review of the reports to the Board of Agriculture, 347.
- 18.
Collins, Harvest technology, 467.
- 19.
Wade-Martins, Williamson, Roots of change, 116–117. On the labour saving potential of mowing, see Collins, Harvest technology, 461.
- 20.
Stephen Frost referred to the wheat harvest with the words ‘cut’ or ‘shear’, all other grains were almost always ‘cut’. The reaping of wheat and the mowing of barley or oats was so common that actively distinguishing between the two methods by refining the vocabulary was unnecessary. Thomas Rippingall was more precise in his wording, to the wheat harvest he referred using ‘reap’, ‘shear’ or ‘cut’, barley and oats were usually ‘mown’. Only in the year 1818 part of the wheat crop was ‘mown’. Stephen Frost Rippingall mowed the wheat in 1835, after 1837 all corn was indiscriminately ‘cut’. Now ‘cut’ probably refers simply to mowing, since all grain crops were now harvested in this way in Norfolk.
- 21.
Before 1817 the Langham harvest date was usually a few days after the harvest date of Fritton, after 1817 it usually coincides with or predates the Fritton harvest.
- 22.
Legislation.gov.uk, delivered by The National Archives, www.legislation.gov.uk/changes/chron-tables/private/25#f2
- 23.
Afton, Investigating agricultural production, 238.
- 24.
This is in accordance with the advice from Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 101–103.
- 25.
No information on the cutting of oats is available 1814–1817.
- 26.
According to Collins, Harvest technology, 460 this could add eight to ten days to the cutting season.
- 27.
Collins, Harvest technology, 456. He mentions that cutting at dead-ripe stage could occur in the eighteenth century.
- 28.
In some cases even cutting the corn green occurred. It is mentioned already in Young, General view of the agriculture of the county of Norfolk, 300 which was published 1804. Anonymous, The practical Norfolk farmer, 104–7 condemns the practice of cutting wheat green, which in the years leading up to 1808, the book’s publication date, had been the custom of many farmers. Stephen Frost, too, notes in his diary in the week of Monday, 24 August 1795: ‘Alway [sic] begin to Cut Wheat Green and you may all other Corn before it is too ripe, which prevent [sic] much spoiling, that often happening [sic] otherwise,’ NRO, MC 120/26. However, 1795 was a cold and wet growing season, so that Stephen Frost might simply have had no other option, than to cut his wheat green because ripening was delayed. Cutting corn green is mentioned only a few times in Stephen Frost’s diaries up to 1816: 1800 (part of the wheat at the beginning of September), 1802 (barley) and 1805 (oats). His successors reverted to it in 1818 (barley), 1823 (barley), 1836 (wheat), 1838 (oats), 1845 (wheat), 1848 (part of the barley at the end of August) and 1855 (wheat). Out of these years the harvests in 1795, 1805, 1823, 1845 and 1855 were late harvests, not starting before the later part of August. The part of the corn that was cut green was also cut late in 1800 and 1848. Therefore it rather appears that at Langham farm cutting green was practised not as a principle, but only in years of dull summers preventing the crops from reaching maturity even by mid- to late August. In 1845 Stephen Frost Rippingall describes such a situation: 23 August. ‘Corn very green from cont[inuous] rain and want of sun.’ He began the harvest that day, NRO, MC 120/72. It is likely that the chances for the corn ripening properly after the end of August were diminished due to the advanced season, so that the farmers were actually left with little choice.
- 29.
Farming diaries for Fritton estate by Thomas Howes of Morningthorpe 1802–1827: NRO, MC 150/52/1-2. The entries were not made daily, but weekly.
- 30.
Nicholas Styleman, journals 1809–1813, 1815–1827: NRO, LEST/LA 14-28, harvest dates in journals NRO, LEST/LA 15-16, 18–22, 24–28.
- 31.
The few times that oats are mentioned in the journal, they were usually harvested before the general harvest or the cutting of wheat.
- 32.
Wade-Martins, Williamson, Randall Burroughes, 65–125. The journal runs from end of 1794 to the end of 1799, entries were not made daily.
- 33.
Wade-Martins, Williamson, Randall Burroughes, 3.
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Pribyl, K. (2017). Farming in Norfolk Around 1800. In: Farming, Famine and Plague. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55953-7_4
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