Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)

Minchinton, Walter E.: The agricultural regions of England and Wales

of classification. In his Rural economy of the West of England he set forward his views: Natural, not fortuitous lines, are requisite to be traced ; Agricultural, not political distinctions, are to be regarded. A Natural district is marked by a uniformity or similarity of soil and surface; whether, by such uniformity, a marsh, a vale, an extent of upland, a range of chalky heights, or a stretch of barren mountains, be produced. And an Agricultural district is discriminated by a uniformity of practice; whether it be characterised by grazing, sheep farming, arable management, or mixed cultivation ; or by the production of some particular articlej as dairy produce, fruit liquor, etc. etc. Now, it is evident, that the boundary lines of Counties pay no regard to these circumstances. On the contrary, we frequently find the most entire Districts, with respect to Nature and Agriculture, severed by political lines of demarcation.

13 When he came to summarize the Board of Agriculture county reports, MARSHALL attempted to set out the information by natural districts and not by county divisions and for the first volume dealing with the north of England he provided a map dividing the northern counties into twenty-nine natural districts (Fig. 5).

14 WILLIAM MARSHALL was the first to try to distinguish the farming regions of England on a consistent basis. In the one volume of the Agrarian history of England*

5 so far published which deals with the sixteenth century, Dr JOAN THIRSK has produced a map of the f

' rming regions of Tudor England following MARSHALL'S precedent. As Fig. 6 shows, she employs a twelve-fold classification which consits of three main categories: mixed farming, pasture farming in wood pasture areas and pasture farming in open pasture areas with appropriate subdivisions.

16 Dealing with the same historical period Dr KERRIDGE has divided England and Wales into 41 different farming regions (as Fig. 7 shows), i3

MARSHALL, WILLIAM. The Rural Economy of the West of England, including Devonshire and Parts of Somersetshire, Dorsetshire and Cornwall, together with Minutes in Practice, I—II. London 1796; Newton Abbot. 1970. I, 2. ^MARSHALL, WILLIAM. The Review and Abstract of the Country Reports to the Board of Agriculture from the Several Agricultural Departments of England, I

—V. York 1818. I, frontispiece. The practice was not continued in the later volumes (DARBY, H. C. op. cit. [Not. 11] 41). &The Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV. 1560—1640. Cambridge University Press 1967. lü

The classification is as follows: I. the first, mixed farming, has three subdivisions: A sheep and corn (on downland, wolds and breckland); B corn and stock variously combined (in clay vales); C corn and stock fattening (in marshland); II. the second, pasture farming types in wood pasture areas, has four subdivisions: A dairying and pig keeping sometimes with horse breeding; B stock breeding with corn growing and sometimes with dairying; C stock fattening and pig keeping; D stock rearing and pig keeping sometimes with horse breeding; III. while the third, pasture farming types in open pasture areas, has five subdivisions: A cattle and sheep rearing sometimes with dairying (on fells and moorland); B rearing and fattening; C fattening of sheep with some cattle; D stock breeding with horse breeding, dairying, fishing, fowling (in fenland); E dairying.