Excerpt from A Short History of English Rural Life: From the Anglo-Saxon Invasion to the Present Time To those - and they are now many - who are earnestly seeking for a true solution of our many agricultural problems, industrial, social and political, the study of the conditions prevailing in rural England from the earliest historical times and of the vicissitudes, both of our greatest national industry and of the classes engaged in it, is an indispensable equipment. By such investigation alone can the difficulties of these problems be appreciated, blunders in rural policy be avoided, and antagonistic interests be reconciled. It will be rendered easy and attractive by a careful perusal of this little book, which skilfully summarizes the chief features of English village life and English agricultural history from Anglo-Saxon times down to the XXth century. And a chequered and kaleidoscopic history it is, replete with picturesque incident, remarkable in the vicissitudes of fortune of both rural industry and rural population, and, as regards the peasant and (more recently) the agricultural labourer, infinitely pathetic and at times tragic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.