We have seen that the landlords' profits were seriously diminished by the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing their incomes. Arable land had been until now largely in excess of pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture, bread forming a much larger proportion of men's diet than now. This began to change. Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there was a steady increase in sheep farming; thus commenced that revolution in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that England was mainly.
