In this manner, Staffordshire and Lancashire, and the country on the banks of the Severn and the Dee, were supplied with West India produce from Bewdley; so complete, indeed, was the monopoly which Bewdley enjoyed, that the tradesmen came from Worcester to buy sugars which had been brought past their own doors from Bristol. The manufactures of Lancashire were brought back to Bewdley, and thence forwarded by barges to Bristol. The roads were so bad, and the difficulty of conveying produce to market so great, that agriculture was much neglected; the meadows were untrained, and so little wheat was grown, that, in one of the neighbouring parishes, the only piece of land which was planted with wheat, was, by way of distinction, called the “ wheat pleck.” Barley and rye were the principal crops; potatoes and turnips were but little planted; wheat and cheese were procured from Gloucestershire. Very little attention was paid to the cultivation of fruit; the trees were seldom grafted, and the cider which was made, was of a very inferior description, being intended merely for home consumption.
Immediately, however, after the canal and the bridge were completed, things began to improve; by the introduction of the turnip husbandry, large flocks of sheep are kept, excellent wheat crops are now produced, and better sorts of fruit are grown. The cider, however, is still rough, and very far inferior to that which is made in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Hops are likewise cultivated in this part of Worcestershire, but not to any great extent, the lighter soil, or rye-lands, as it is called,
