A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



to 15-f. id. per acre ; yet fifteen years later, a period during which it is not 

 stated that there was a decline in rents, thirty-one tenants and cottagers paid 

 altogether only about 1,040 us. 8</., 317 a sum suggesting that many of the 

 holdings must have been well under 50 acres. 



Prices, too, seem as usual to have been low ; so that except where the 

 farmer could actually live on the produce of his land he would probably have 

 a hard struggle. In 1736-7 malt seems to have varied from 4^. to 3-r. gd. a 

 strike (or bushel) at Colston Basset ; oats were 8j. 6d. and IQS. a quarter ; 

 while sheep seem to have varied from about i is. 6d. to izs. 6d. On the 

 other hand, cows ranged up to 5 i6j. 6d., and two Colston Basset oxen were 

 sold in London for 15 is. jd. n% 



At a later date, and in other parts of Nottinghamshire, the prices of corn 

 increased; at Kirkby in 1769-71 oats were 12s. and 17;-., and barley 26s. 6d. a 

 quarter ; 219 but even these prices could not be considered high. At the same 

 time that arable farming seems to have been depressed, the progress of agri- 

 culture, as is well known, was rendering stock farming more profitable, and 

 was tending towards the creation of larger and larger farms. In Arthur 

 Young's Northern Tour he lamented over the small farms held at a rental from 

 20 to 70 round Worksop and Welbeck and advised the laying of four or 

 five together. He attributed the low rents in that neighbourhood (4^. to Ss. 

 an acre) entirely to the existence of these small farms, and he made similar 

 complaints of farms round Newark, usually rented at IDJ. an acre, while 

 round Tuxford the rents were higher, 15^. an acre. 220 That the landowners 

 should consult their own interest, and let large in preference to small farms, 

 was only to be expected ; and before the date of the Tour the process had 

 probably begun, to judge by the rent-roll of the Duke of Newcastle before 

 quoted. In 1764 the rents, stationary since 1738, began to increase, and the 

 number of tenants to decrease ; the obvious inference being that the estates 

 were divided into larger holdings. 



The causes which made large farms profitable also gave a fresh impetus 

 to the movement for inclosures. As has been seen this movement had been 

 active during the i7th century, and it was continued in the i8th. Instances 

 appear in the licence by Charles II in 1661 to empark 1,200 acres at 

 Annesley ; S21 and in the inclosure of the Newark lands in 1700 despite the 

 remonstrances of many of the burghers. 332 



With the 1 8th century, however, the great inclosure period in Notting- 

 hamshire begins. All through the latter half of the century inclosures were 

 going on rapidly. In Carlton in Lindrick alone 2,492 acres were inclosed in 

 ijby nearly the same amount as the total inclosures in all Nottinghamshire 

 in the beginning of the i6th century. In Kirkby, about 1765, 3,700 acres of 

 common, 1,985 acres of forest, and 23 acres of ' lanes ' were to be inclosed ; 

 in this case the principal landholder, and the person therefore to reap the 

 greatest profit, was the Duke of Newcastle. 22 * 



Frequently, though by no means invariably, these inclosures meant the 

 conversion of arable to pasture. Between 1761 and 1799 the acreage under 



'"Add. MSS. 22252. '"Ibid. 



"' Ibid. 18552, fol. 23, 26. " A. Young, Northern Tour, i, 97-100, 319-28. 



" Cal. S.P. Dem. 1661-2, p. 35. m W. D. Rastall, Hiit. of Southwell, ii, 214-18. 



*** G. Slater, The Engl. Peasantry and the Inclosure of the Common Fields, 127. 

 "' Add. MSS. 18552. 



294 



