V AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 91 



in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the acreage 

 enclosed was at least 4,464,189. To this, which only 

 includes those enclosures and awards in which some common 

 field was enclosed, we must add the Acts and awards refer- 

 ring to waste only. Of these there were as many as 1,385 

 passed before the general Enclosure Act of 1845 dealing 

 with 1,765,711 acres, and 508 subsequent awards dealing 

 with 334,906 acres. Thus, the total number of acres 

 enclosed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will 

 be found to be some six and a half million, that is, nearly 

 20 per cent, of the total acreage of England. 



I must warn my hearers that these estimates are some- 

 what hypothetical. The tables prepared by Mr. Gay 

 dealing with the earlier period are, as I have shown, based 

 on much assumption. Those of Mr. Slater are equally so. 2 

 Nor is this all. On the one hand we know that the 

 inquisitions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries only 

 dealt with twenty-five counties, and that enclosure had 

 certainly being going on in many other counties. Indeed, 

 there is good reason to believe that the amount of enclosure 

 was much less exactly in those counties where it caused 

 most discontent, as is proved by the fact that we have 

 more Private Acts dealing with those counties in the 

 eighteenth century, that is in those counties where there 

 was from the first most common field. Nor again have 

 we any means of estimating the amount enclosed from 

 1607 to 1700. 



On the other hand, when dealing with the eighteenth 

 and nineteenth centuries, we know that there was a great 

 power of approvement. In the reign of Charles II two 



1 Slater, Appendix A, and further information supplied by Mr. Slater, 

 and returns sent me by the Board of Agriculture. 



2 Cf. Slater, p. UO, note ; Prothero, Pioneers, p. 257, puts the 

 acreage as high as eight and a quarter millions ; Hunter, Statistical 

 Soc., no. 60. 



