dominated English agriculture. ^* Breeding was unselective
and the majority of commons and pastures were over-
stocked with lean sheep and undernourished cattle. Ineffi-
cient as the farming was, the profits were very great. There
was an incessant demand for wool and the government
bounty on corn stimulated arable farming. The big farming
profits encouraged the movement towards enclosure. It also
made the possession of great estates a highly desirable form
of investment and of course this again encouraged experi-
ments in agrarian technique.

From the end of the seventeenth century, possibly since
the Civil War, there had been a tendency for estates to grow
larger, and this was beginning, by the early eighteenth cen-
tury, to affect the nature of rural society. By prudent
marriages and careful purchases, some of the aristocratic
families of the seventeenth century amassed estates which
made them far richer than many of the sovereign powers of
Germany. The Duke of Newcastle in 1714 possessed estates
in twelve different counties and his income was £40,000 p.a.
The Dukes of Bedford were richer; scarcely an acre of Bed-
fordshire did not belong to them: in every county there were
a few families, usually aristocratic, who possessed similar
riches. This made them a class apart from the small squire.
The distinction was further underlined by the way of life
which these agrarian millionaires designed for themselves.
The point of pride was the rural palace. There was no
modesty felt about the ostentation of wealth. Castle Howard,
Wentworth Woodhouse, Houghton intoxicated contem-
poraries with their size and grandeur. To give them a fit set-
ting nature was subdued with exquisite art and the English

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