Welsh Journals

the problems of mining techniques for the reader. Two minor grumbles: a book which bristles with colliery and place-names should be better served with maps than this one is; it is, too, regrettable that the references-there are nearly a thousand-should be divorced from the text. But these are small drawbacks in a book which is so informative and scholarly. JOHN MORRIS Aberystwyth THE RURAL ECONOMY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND (1796). By William Marshall. Reprinted by David and Charles, 1970. Two volumes, xxxiv, 332; xxiv, 358. £ 8-40. The study of agrarian history has grown increasingly popular in recent years and the reprint of Marshall's Rural Economy of the West of England (1796) is an important contribution to the subject. The author wrote this work as part of his celebrated publication, A General Survey of the Rural Economy of England, in which he divided the country into six agricultural departments. In this comprehensive work, completed in 1798, Marshall presented us with a valuable picture of all aspects of the rural economy and society of the England of his day. He was well equipped for such an undertaking, for he combined long experience as an estate agent and a keen eye for practical detail with a knowledge of most branches of rural science. The Rural Economy of the West of England covers Devon and parts of Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall. Marshall, a practical agriculturalist, wisely disregarded the county as a convenient unit of study, and adopted instead natural districts determined, as he indicated, by 'a uniformity or similarity of soil and surface'. He identified seven such districts, each having its particular mode of agricultural practice, although the area as a whole was a pastoral rather than an arable one. Thus, butter and cheese dairy farming prevailed in the Vale of Exeter and in east Devon and west Dorset while, with the exception of the corn-growing Vale of Taunton, the remaining districts concentrated on cattle for breeding purposes. All aspects of rural economy are discussed for each district. Observations are made upon the cultivation of wastes, the propagation of timber, the manufacture of cloth, the state of communications, and the food and habitations of the people. But the main body of the work is concerned with agricultural matters: the management of estates, the size of farms, the labour force, beasts of labour, agricultural implements, the manage- ment of the soil, the types of arable crops grown, the kinds of livestock carried and, important in this region, fruit farming.