History of agriculture in Cheshire

[2] Burnt grain found at Tatton in association with post holes and flint artefacts dated to 3500–2900 BC has been interpreted as a transitory farming settlement.

Varley speculates that the earliest Neolithic farmers cleared the forest to cultivate emmer wheat and barley using mattocks of bone or stone, and herded oxen, goats, sheep and pigs using dogs; they lacked ploughs and horses.

[1][5][6] In the Bronze Age, agricultural usage was largely concentrated on uplands in the Pennine fringe in the east of the county and the Mid Cheshire Ridge.

[7] Pollen analysis suggests extensive forest clearance had occurred by or during the Roman period, although there is little evidence that the land was cultivated; felling could have been necessary to fuel the salt industry.

Only limited evidence of Roman field systems has been found in the county; possible examples include Longley Farm, Kelsall, Pale Heights, Eddisbury and Somerford Hall, near Congleton.

[9] Querns have been discovered at the settlement at Saltney, near the legionary fortress of Deva (Chester); the site has been suggested to have grown cereals for the garrison, although the heavy clay soil makes this less likely.

[13] One interpretation of these figures is that only around 50% of the available arable land was in cultivation at the time of the survey, perhaps because much of the county had made only a limited recovery from the devastation caused by William I's suppression of the Mercian uprisings sixteen years previously.

[15][17] There is evidence for around 250 commonly held open fields across Cheshire, which were generally smaller than those in the Midlands, and used a two-field or multiple-field pattern.

[18] The designation of the three royal hunting forests of Mara and Mondrem, Macclesfield and Wirral, which at their height covered around 40% of the county, significantly slowed agricultural development within their boundaries.

[22] The rise in population during the 12th and 13th centuries created a need for increased agricultural output, and trees were cleared in the forests (assarting) and marsh reclaimed for use as arable land.

[19] Agricultural efficiency also improved during this period with, for example, the practice of applying a clay and lime mixture termed marl as a fertiliser from the early 13th century, earlier than in much of Britain.

[25] Large numbers of pigs were fed on acorns and nuts in the forests and woodland by right of pannage on payment of a fine, and pork was exported from the county in the 13th and 14th centuries.

St Werburgh's in Chester alone held 57 manors in Cheshire, and Vale Royal, Combermere and Norton also had considerable land holdings.

Much of the land was sold or leased to lay members of the Cheshire gentry, creating large estates, although St Werburgh's holdings were used to endow the new cathedral.

[35][36] Farms started to pool their milk to make large cheeses for export in specialised dairies, a practice then sufficiently unusual to draw comment from travel-writer Celia Fiennes.

[36] Epidemics of cattle disease, including foot and mouth disease in 1839, several outbreaks of pleuropneumonia, and rinderpest (cattle plague) in 1865–66, led to the formation of numerous friendly societies and mutual associations to provide assistance to farmers; several were sponsored by the landowners of the county's major estates, particularly Cholmondeley, Crewe and Peckforton.

The 1865–66 rinderpest epidemic affected much of England but was particularly devastating in Cheshire; entire herds died and the county's economy collapsed for 18 months.

[39][40] In around 1870, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the agriculture of the county: The estates, in general, are large; but the farms, on the average, are under 100 acres.

"[42] Agriculture, especially dairy farming, continued to be Cheshire's primary industry during the 20th century, despite a substantial decline in the proportion of the workforce employed in the sector.

[43][45] Mechanisation of arable farming started during the First World War, in an attempt to increase efficiency due to the scarcity of labour, and continued during the depression of the interwar period, when low food prices sharply reduced farmers' profits.