I quite agree with Chris as regards the viability of farming before the Agricultural Revolution. My family have 'always' been farmers so I was quite surprised to find that although their addresses were of many of the farms in Cumberland & Westmorland we know today, they also followed various trades. This brings us onto another subject - the definition of a Husbandman. During the nineteenth century, the term husbandman related someone who worked for someone else but was a tenant in a smallholding or a tenant farmer operating on a subsistance level and subsidizing his income with other work (to put it another way). However, upto the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the term husbandman refered to the occupation of farming. I have come accross various Wills of quite genteel persons being refered to as Husbandmen! During the same time, the term farmer usually meant making a income from a tenancy, whether it was land or premises. Yeoman in the nineteenth century refered to a small landowner, or someone who owned the farm on which they lived. Upto the last quarter of the eighteenth century it had a very different meaning - it refered to all persons who owned an estate which was worth £20 per annum (I think that was the amount) That is why, when reading earlier Wills you get people living in the middle of Carlisle, carrying on with very urban trades being refered to as Yeomen. In short, it was a status term as opposed to being occupational. Sorry for going off the original subject. Regards, Trevor Littleton