V AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 99 



come after enclosure, this proves that before enclosure the 

 land had been under the plough. 



>( As the century wore on, no doubt, the area under tillage 

 increased, which did a good deal to restore the balance. 

 A Select Committee of the House of Commons estimated 

 that as a result of all the Acts for enclosure of waste and 

 common field, passed between 1755 and 1800, there had been 

 a net gain of area under wheat to the amount of 10,625 

 acres, but this Report included Acts for enclosure of the 

 waste. In the General Report of the Board of Agriculture 

 of 1808, which leaves out all cases where waste alone was 

 enclosed, we find that in the Midland Counties there was, 

 under Enclosure Acts passed between 1761 and 1799 a net 

 decrease of land applied to arable purposes of 19,003 acres. 

 In the other parts of England, however, especially in the 

 Eastern Counties, there was a gain, which altogether comes 

 to 2,988 acres, so that the total decrease of land under the 

 plough for the whole of England, as a result of enclosure of 

 the open commonable field, amounted during that period to 

 16,015 acres, 1 not, it must be confessed, a serious matter. 

 When we come to the nineteenth century, the very high 

 price of corn told at last, and from that date until about 

 1830 the acreage under tillage enormously increased. 2 



Whatever may be the truth as to the effect of enclosure 

 on the landless folk, there can be little doubt, in spite of 

 attempts to prove the contrary, 3 that the enclosure, whether 

 of the common field or of the waste, was, in the way at 



1 Slater, p. 108; Report of Board of Agriculture on Enclosures, 

 1802, pp. 229-32. 



2 Cf. on the whole question, Cunningham, English Industry, ii. 38 ; 

 Slater, p. 108; Select Committee of House of Commons, Dec., 1800; 

 General Report on Enclosures, 1808, pp. 99, 232 ; Mantoux, 165 ; 

 Hasbach, p. 39 ff. ; Scruton, Commons, p. 146 ; Horner, Essay on 

 Enclosure, 1766, p. 15 ; Victoria County Hist. : Durham, ii. 240. 



8 Cf. Bentham, who declared that the enclosure of the waste was 

 favourable to the interests of rich and poor alike. 



G 2 



