The state of agriculture in Jersey is backward, and substantial reasons may be assigned for this, the most prominent perhaps of which is the minute division of property.
Division of properpty
The law of Gavelkind, which obtains in this island, necessarily occasions a minute division of property, so much so that it not unfrequently happens that at the end of two generations, the eldest son is left without sufficient land to maintain himself, or to keep up his paternal house.
Not only do we find in Jersey half a dozen fields belonging perhaps to half a dozen persons, but sometimes even the same field owning two or more proprietors. In this case, the field is sown with different kinds of grain, and each proprietor speaks of his ‘’camp de grain’’.
That this minute division of property, and the law which produces it, should lead to a backward state of agriculture, must be at once apparent. There is little spur to exertion, and limited means of improvement.
One left with an inheritance of only three or four vergées of land is rarely in a condition to purchase the proper manure necessary to ensure a good crop. And even where farms of from ten to 20 vergées are possessed by persons destitute of capital, little in the way of improvement can be expected.
The English ferme ornée is unknown in Jersey, for no man in his senses would dream of putting a ring fence round his property, or of beautifying, planting and laying out his grounds, when he knows that by the existing law, the ferme ornée might probably be broken up and subdivided at his death.
Thomas Quayle, in his 1815 report on the agriculture of these islands, mentions another obstacle to improvement, in the want of labourers. But the difficulty of obtaining labourers was only felt during the war; a sufficiency of French and English labourers may now be commanded, whose wages vary from 10d to 2s per day. The latter wages are generally paid for the most efficient English labourers.
Land values
An English farmer who finds that he can scarcely obtain a livelihood when paying 24s per acre, would start, when told that the best land in the country parishes in Jersey lets, when let at all, at £23 10s per vergée, which is equivalent to £5 12s 6d per English acre, and he would naturally enquire how such a rent is paid.
The Jersey farmer is enabled to pay a higher rent than the English farmer because his produce is greater, and his expenses are less. He has no land tax to pay, little or no poor rates; his manure costs him little, and prvisions being cheaper, labour is also lower.
By the peculiar immunities and privileges possessed by Jersey, the farmer has all the advantage of cheap provisions and cheap labour, while at the same time, the value of his farm produce is unaffected. The inhabitants of Jersey may eat the beef, mutton and flour of France without any duty on importation and the farmer may send his own produce to the English market free of duty, and command a much higher price for it than that at which he can consume the Continental produce.
To these diminished expenses of the farmer, add the greater produce of his land, which in wheat, potatoes and lucerne is undeniably greater than in England, and it will jo longer appear singular that such high rents are cheerfully paid for good land in Jersey.
The value of land is on the increase in Jersey, in a ratio corresponding with the increased population, and the rapid increase of wealth among the farmers and merchants. In the parishes farthest removed from St Helier, land has been selling during the present year (1833) at £117 per acre. An estate of 40 vergées, lying about a mile and a half from St Helier, was very recently purchased at £150 per acre.
Nor is this considered in Jersey too high a price for the best arable land. An offer was made the following day to the purchaser to rent the farm at £6 15s per acre, leaving the purchaser in possession of the farmhouse and garden, the rent of which would pay him the full interest of his purchase money at 5 per cent.
Ploughs
The great Jersey plough, or grande querue, which is held in community, is less in vogue than it appears to have been. Jersey farmers are beginning to discover that ploughing to the depth of 11 inches is sufficient in the best husbandry, and it is probably that the ‘’grande querue’’, with its 18-inch deep furrows, and harnessed with its two bullocks and eight horses, or with its six bullocks and 16 horses, as might once have been seen in Guernsey, will shortly be no more.
When Quayle wrote, there was only one thrashing mill in Jersey; now there are several, but they are all of an inferior construction. The small size, however, of the Jersey farms scarcely creates a necessity for the thrashing mill.
All the writers on Jersey whom I have consulted state that tillage in Jersey has declined, and is declining; and certain reasons are assigned as to why. These reasons do not, however, exist, and tillage has of late been decidedly on the increase.
A great spur was given to tillage by the construction of the new roads, and the improved means of keeping them in repair. Where great impediments exist in the way of bringing farm produce to market, tillage cannot well be prosperous. Twenty years ago three horses were required to drag a ton weight of potatoes to St Helier from any of the distant parishes. It was also necessary to send an avant courier to keep the road clear. Now a farmer can send the same weight of potatoes with a single horse and a boy, twice in one day, from the remote parishes to the pier of St Helier.
Reaping time in Jersey is, as in most other places, a merry time. But there is one peculiarity attending the Jersey reaping field: the reapers always sing the reaping song, and but for this song, no farmer would be satisfied that the reapers did their duty. The song is sufficiently monotonous, but to one walking through the fields of a summer’s day, the effect is not unpleasant.
The return from what land in Jersey is large. At the time Mr Quayle made his report to the board of agriculture, it would appear that wheat and barley in Jersey were grown in nearly equal quantities. This is no longer the case. There is at least three times more wheat than barley sown in Jersey. Oats are not extensively grown, and are used chiefly for feeding hogs.
In parsnip husbandry the hoe is not yet in use. The crop is cleaned in the more certain, but greatly more expensive, manner of hand weeding, which is performed by women on their knees, using small weeding forks and depositing the weeds in baskets they carry with them.
Potatoes
Potatoes, being an important item of Jersey exportation, are extensively cultivated, and the cultivation of this root is fast increasing. The management, however, is not the best, for the use of fresh seaweed as manure on rich lands procures a crop of potatoes unfit either for the table or for exportation.
The produce from potato land in Jersey is enormous. Experiments are now in progress in the island to obtain varieties by seed. [Editor’s note: It would be another 25 years before the chance discovery by St Ouen farmer John Le Caudey of a high yielding early variety revolutionised the Jersey potato industry.
No crop is more valued in Jersey than lucerne, and since the introduction and increased cultivation of this grass, the beauty of the island has been greatly increased. Along many parts of the sea coast, on the sand hills, where formerly the eye did not rest upon a blade of verdure, many acres of lucerne have been laid down.
The Jersey system of joint-stock labour and stock, once universal, still generally obtains among the middle classes of farmers, but the more wealthy are gradually becoming independent of this system and are possessed of ploughs, harrows and cattle of their own.
Cider
The great export of Jersey being cider, orchard land necessarily occupies a very large portion of the island. Quayle stated that one fourth of the arable land is occupied by apple trees, and of late the export of apples and of cider has been steadily on the increase.
Livestock
It remains for me to say a few words respecting the livestock of Jersey, and this, to the English reader who has heard so much of the cow of these islands – commonly called the Alderney cow – will probably be the most interesting topic connected with Jersey agriculture.
The islands are particularly tenacious of their claims in this matter. Each contends for the superiority of its own breed; but there is no reason to doubt that the breed of all the islands is originally the same. It is the opinion of the best informed upon agricultural matters that the Jersey and Alderney cow is the same – both distinguished by the fine curved taper horn, the slender nose, the fine skin, and the deer-like form.
The cows is the object of the Jerseyman’s chief attention, and the care and affection which he lavishes upon it may be compared with that which a German lavishes on his horse. Only that the kindness which the Jerseyman shows for his cow appears to exhaust all the kindness which he has to bestow on the inferior animals, for I have never, in any country, seen horses treated with less kindness than in Jersey.
I cannot do better than quote the words of Quayle when speaking of the affection of a Jerseyman for his cow:
- ”It is true that in summer she must submit to be staked to the ground, but five or six times in the day, her station is shifted. In winter she is warmly housed by night, and fed with the precious parsnip. When she calves she is regaled with toast, and with the nectar of the island, cider, to which powdered ginger is added. And could she be prevailed on to participate in all her master’s tastes, there is no doubt but that he would willingly bestow on her the quintescence of vraic itself.”
The high estimation in which the Jersey cow is held by their possessors is shared by the island legislature, which has preserved the purity of the breed by special enactments. An act was passed in 1789 by which the importation into Jersey of cow, heifer, calf or bull is prohibited, under the penalty of 200 livres, with the forfeiture of boat and tackle, and a fine of 50 livres is also imposed on every sailor on board who does not inform of the attempt. The animal, too, is decreed to be immediately slaughtered and its flesh given to the poor.
The number of cows everywhere dotting the pastures of Jersey add greatly to the beauty of the landscape; though when one passes near to them, the discovery that they are tethered somewhat decreases the pleasure we have in seeing them.
The price of Jersey cows has considerably fallen during the last 15 years. A good cow may now be purchased for £12. A prime milker will fetch £15; and the average may be stated from £8 to £10. That notwithstanding the attention bestowed upon the Jersey cow, and the purity of its breed, guarded as it is, both by law and rooted opinion, the Jersey cow has nevertheless deteriorated, is certain. I was present a few months ago at the inaugurational meeting of the agricultural society for Jersey, at which many facts illustrative of this truth were stated to the secretary.
Sheep
There is no such thing as a breed of sheep in Jersey. Sheep are only reared by those who have a right of common, and who live in the neighbourhood of the common; and the sheep are left entirely to shift for themselves. It is only the poorer classes who keep sheep at all.
Horses
Of horses I have only to say that little attention is paid to the breed, but the Jersey horse is well deserving of attention. It is a hardy and hard working animal, a cross of the cossack – a fact which is easily explained. In 1800, when the assistance of a body of Russians was demanded by England, and when they were not permitted to land in England, they were sent to be quartered in Jersey, where they remained a considerable time. A large proportion of their horses being cossacks, the cossack crossis at once accounted for.
