10 Jan., 1018. 1 Farming in England in Early Times. 35 



be no protests, and no legal transactions. However, there is the 

 Statute of Merton of 1236 to show that enclosure was proceeding 

 even at that early time, for it grants to the lord the right of " approve- 

 ment "* of as much land as he liked, provided that his action did not 

 interfere with the legitimate claims of the tenants. 



The counties bordering on Wales are said to have been affected 

 by the condition of agriculture in that Principality where coaration 

 did not exist. Professor Gonner, whose book on " Common Fields and 

 Enclosure " is indispensable for the student of this subject, observes 

 that where this was absent common right over arable after harvest 

 would also vanish, and one of the difficulties of enclosing would be 

 removed. 



Marshall, writing in 1805, found that there were no common fields 

 in West Devonshire. He saw that there the cultivated lands were 

 all enclosed, having the appearance of having been formed from a 

 state of common pasture, in which state some considerable part of the 

 district remains. The better parts of these open commons evidently 

 had formerly been in a state of aration. lying in obvious ridges and 

 furrows and generally with the remains of hedgerows. — He suggests 

 that this condition had arisen from the custom of the lord of the manor 

 having the privilege of letting portions of common land to tenants 

 for them to take one or more crops of corn, and after that it was allowed 

 to revert to grass. Thus the lord would get the wild land tamed and 

 would keep it in grass. 



Enclosure of land for sheep-farming certainly took place in the 

 fifteenth century, but probably it was rather the enclosure of common 

 and waste than of arable. Also frequently demesne land was con- 

 verted into pasturage. Enclosure for pasture was not always for wool, 

 but for food when the district was near a growing town population. 



Between 1550 and 1700 we get the enclosure of a great quantity 

 of land hitherto wholly wild or in scant use in Cornwall. 



The enclosures of this period are connected with the growth of 

 farming, the new land brought into cultivation being largely arable; 

 and this is especially true of the newly-drained areas. It is at this 

 time also we notice the growing importance of the dairy, and the 

 Gloucestershire Vales, West and North-East Wiltshire, with the 

 Cricklade and Aylesbury districts, are all given by Professor Gonner 

 as being enclosed by the end of this period. In Surrey, Sussex, and 

 Kent the enclosures were probably made from the wild at an early 

 date, but not for arable purposes. Much of the arable, though re- 

 maining " open," was held in severalty, and was not subject to common 

 rights of pasture. The " enclosed " condition of Kent was fully 

 recognised in Burton's Anatomv (1621). Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex 

 also appear to have passed through their stages of enclosure at a very- 

 early date. In Somerset there were very large enclosures from the 

 wild in early times, and also enclosures of open fields, especially around 

 Taunton, and in the north-east. There was enclosure of demesne and 

 possibly of common fields in the sixteenth century, and also probably 

 of land from wild, and we may say that practically the bulk of this 

 county was enclosed by 1700. 



Great interest was shown in farming in the seventeenth century. 

 Whilst in the sixteenth we have only two writers of any importance, 



* En(!losur«. 

 22 



