Agriculture

AGRICULTURE

The development of agriculture in Furness suffered from the region being so isolated. In 1772, Thomas Pennant, an 18th century traveller and author of several guide books, wrote the inhabitants of these parts have but recently applied themselves to husbandry. Among the manures, sea-sand and live mussels are frequently used, but till within these twenty years the use of dung was scarcely known to them. Pennant also noted that beans were grown for export to Liverpool 'for the food of the poor enslaved negroes in the Guinea trade'.

W B Kendall, a 19th century naturalist and antiquary and the writer of The Village of Barrow in the Parish of Dalton-in-Furness 1843, described the land as being 'neither drained, cleared or manured. However, because of the introduction of new agricultural methods, by the late 18th century, Low Furness had become one of the main wheat producing areas of Lancashire. Dr William Close, writing in the 19th century, stated that Walney Island was 'as productive of wheat, oats and barley as to deserve the appellation of the Granary of Furness.

A major improvement was the enclosure of the open fields; by the end of the 18th century most of the fields in the villages of Low Furness had been enclosed; by 1810, Dr W Close noted that Low Furness was divided into large enclosures by verdant hedges. By 1811, (the year William Fisher had begun to write his diary), a pattern of mixed farming had been established. Wheat, barley and oats were sown, while a hay crop was taken from the meadow in July, and the seed grass was mown in the month of June. From about 1822, potatoes became a common crop, and beans and peas were grown. Dairy cattle were kept and the Fisher Household Accounts show that butter and cheese contributed to successful farm management.

The Napoleonic Wars and the Corn Laws of the early 19th century caused the price of wheat to be high, and encouraged its growth, but unfortunately, resulted in much hardship for the peasants of Furness.

From 1850 onwards there were improvements in communications in Lancashire, and this had a favourable effect on agriculture in the whole of the county. Dr J D Marshall, in his classic book Furness and the Industrial Revolution, had stressed that the establishment of a regular steamship service from Roa and Barrow to Fleetwood enabled the produce of Furness farms to reach the industrial markets of Preston and South Lancashire. When the Ulverston-Lancaster line was completed (1857), the same produce could be transported by rail.