Arable Land 



neither Saxon nor Celtic, but probably Neolithic. Yet 

 even in a very sparsely settled country it was not surely 

 so very admirable. 



The labourer had to trudge over miles daily to get to 

 his own special plot. He could not permanently improve 

 the soil, for the plots were usually changed every year. 

 His cattle could neither be properly fed or in any way 

 improved by breeding or selection. 



The enclosure of England was a wise and necessary 

 proceeding. It required strong nerve and even brutality 

 to carry it through, but the result has been to increase 

 the harvests beyond calculation, and to afford a livelihood 

 to many thousands more than could ever have existed 

 on the Inishturk or Braunton system. 



Even in Saxon days there had been, as we have seen, 

 some progress in the first reclaiming of waste. 



But the " stubbing up " and removal of the wild vege- 

 tation is but a very small part of the labour necessary. 

 Every field in England has been drained ; the ground 

 has, in most places, been more or less levelled. Stones 

 have been collected and taken off, and especially, for it is 

 the one essential point in which civilised efficient agricul- 

 ture differs from more or less savage backwood methods, 

 every field has been enclosed. There were no wire 

 fences in the days when England was made, such as now 

 make enclosure a very much simpler affair for Australian, 

 Canadian, or South American settlers. These enclosures 

 were ditches which had to be dug with an immense ex- 

 penditure of labour, or rough stone walls, or earthen 

 banks planted with hawthorns. 



The work expended on an acre of land in draining, 

 ditching, levelling, clearing, and fencing must have been 

 enormous. However low one reckons the cost of labour 

 to-day, the present value of an acre of ordinary land 

 would be very much less than the cost of making it. 



2 53 



