Welsh Journals

AGRICULTURE IN MONTGOMERYSHIRE IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY J. M. POWELL, M.A., PH.D. The dominance of livestock farming throughout most of Wales is well estab- lished, and has indeed been the main feature of the agricultural economy for centuries. However, the degree of specialisation in Wales as elsewhere was particularly heightened during the nineteenth century. Montgomeryshire, straddling both broad upland plateaux and fertile lowlands, presents an interes- ting case study for a reconstruction of the former scene. This article makes use of two major sources: the Crop Returns of 1801, and the maps accompanying enclosure awards and estate surveys. In conjunction with the reports of contemporary observers, these enable a description to be made of the important regional characteristics of farming in Montgomeryshire in the late eighteenth- early nineteenth century. THE 180 I RETURNS Agricultural statistics were collected regularly, and made available on a parish basis after 1865. These so-called June Returns of the Ministry were, however, introduced after a good deal of change had taken place in agriculture due to technical innovations and the arrival of the railway. The importance of an earlier body of statistics cannot therefore be over-estimated. Under the threat of Napoleonic invasion, parish incumbents were requested by the Home Office to collect details of the acreages devoted to various crops in their districts. Compared with the information for other Welsh Counties, the 1801 returns for Montgomeryshire give a fair coverage, including 31 of the 52 parishes.1 Large areas were completely omitted, however. Thus, while the Southern and North-Eastern parishes were adequately recorded, much of the middle Severn valley and most of the North-Western parishes were excluded. The numerous difficulties presented by the 1801 Returns have been discussed elsewhere, and only the final analysis is presented here.2 Their accuracy has 1 The 1801 Returns for Montgomeryshire, included in the dioceses of Bangor and St. Asaph, were transcribed by D. Williams (Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 1956, page 146) and these transcripts, not the originals, were used here. 2 D. Thomas, "The Statistical and cartographic treatment of the Acreage Returns of 1801". Geographical Studies 1959, and "The Acreage Returns of 1801 for the Welsh Borderland." Transac- tions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1959. J. M. Powell, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Liverpool-" An Economic Geography of Montgomeryshire in the Nineteenth Century".