96 ENCLOSURES OF THE EIGHTEENTH 



V Thus, on the one side, we find attempts to describe tl 

 condition of things before enclosure as idyllic. This the] 

 certainly were not. The excessive subdivision of the 

 common fields caused waste of time and of land ii 

 cultivating the narrow strips, and led to constant, some 

 times ridiculous, quarrels which entirely prevented any 

 system of improved tillage. The land was dirty, the 

 balks grew thistles and couch grass which spread. By 

 undue extension of the arable field there was a dearth 

 of the necessary manure. The right enjoyed by the 

 commoners to turn out beasts on the common field after 

 the hay and corn harvest, and on the waste, was often 

 abused by the richer commoners, who would buy stock for 

 that purpose. In other manors the right was of little use, 

 because the cattle and sheep of the poorer commoners were 

 often victims of infectious diseases; in others, if all had 

 exercised their rights, there would not have been a fort- 

 night's feed. 1 



Nor were the cottagers who lived on the waste, with 

 some notable exceptions, 2 very desirable folk. Many of 

 these were probably descendants of those who in earlier 

 days had been driven from their tenancies at will on the 

 demesne and elsewhere; the unfortunate victims of the 

 economical changes of the preceding centuries; but they were 

 recruited from the lowest classes, and if they did in some 



41, 1809, p. 231. The whole subject is well treated in Board of 

 Agriculture General Report, 1808 ; Parl. Commission on Enclosures, 

 1844 ; and by Hasbach, Die englischen Landarbeiter, p. 60 ; Mantoux, 

 La Revolution industrielle, pp. 146, 515 ; Slater, English Peasantry 

 and Enclosures, especially c. xviii. 



1 Report on Enclosures, 1844, Qs. 1543, 3996, 4190-2, 4270, 427( 

 4391, 4393, 4766, &c. Sir J. Sinclair declared that the differenc 

 between weight of beasts fed on the commons and on enclosed lane 

 was 370 Ib. as against 800, calves 50 as against 148, sheep 28 as agains 

 80 : Address to Board of Agriculture, 1795. 



2 A. Young, Annals, vol. xxxvi, 1801, p. 497. 



