833 



INCLOSURE. 



INCLOSURE. 



834 



year has lot two the next, and so on. When these lands are arable 

 lands, they do not change annually, but periodically, according to the 

 rotation of the crops. Then there is the old lot meadow, in which the 

 owners draw lots for the choice. There are a great variety of circum- 

 stances under which the severalty ownership of these lands shifts from 

 time to time but after the severalty ownership has ceased, and after 

 the crop has been removed, they all become commonable." 



This is one among many instances of the existence of ancient usages 

 in England, which are the same or nearly the same as the usages of 

 nations that we call barbarous. Tacitus (' Gennania,' c. 26) says of the 

 ancient German mode of agriculture : " The lands, in proportion to 

 the number of cultivators, are occupied by all in turns, which pre- 

 sently they divide among themselves according to their rank (merit). 

 The extensive plains offer facilities for division. They change the 

 cultivated fields yearly ; and there is still a superfluity of land." The 

 meaning of Tacitus is not clear. The following passage in Csesar's 

 account of the Gauls (vi. 22) is more distinct : " They pay no atten- 

 tion to agriculture, nor lias any man a fixed quantity of land and 

 boundaries of property : but the magistrates annually assign to the 

 clans and tribes who have come together, as much land as they please 

 and where they please, and in the next year they compel them to move 

 to another spot." Herodotus (ii. 168) says that each member of the 

 military caste in Egypt had a certain portion of land assigned to him ; 

 but they enjoyed the lands in a rotation, and the same persons did not 

 continue in the enjoyment of the same lands. Strabo (p. 315) men- 

 tions a custom amongst the Dalmatians of making a division of their 

 lands every eight years. 



" The third class is that of grazing lands, where the rights of parties 

 are settled and defined, the ordinary stinted pasture. The common- 

 able lands are subject to very great variety and peculiarity ; for in- 

 stance, in some of these lands the right of grazing sheep at all belongs 

 to a man called a flock-master, and he has the power, during certain 

 months of the year, of turning his own sheep exclusively on all the 

 lands of the parish ; or, according to particular circumstances, his right 

 is limited and restricted to turning sheep upon a certain portion of it, 

 with a view to giving parties an opportunity of putting in a wheat crop. 

 In those parishes where there is a flock-master who has a right of 

 depasturing his sheep during a certain portion of the year over all the 

 land of the parish, it is clear that no one can sow any wheat without 

 having made a bargain with him for shutting up his own particular 

 fields, or some portion of them." 



" There is a very large extent of woodland in this kingdom that is 

 commonable, strange to say, where certain individuals have a right 

 during the whole year, to turn on stock, the owner of the wood 

 having no means of preserving his property except by shutting out 

 other commoners' stock by custom for some two or three years after 

 felling. There is that right, as also the old right of estover, which is a 

 very great inconvenience, namely, where parties have the right of cut- 

 ting house-bote, and plough-bote, and fire-bote, and so on in woods 

 belonging, qu& wood, to another party. There is a great deal of laud 

 subject to that ruinous custom. There are many varieties of these 

 commonable lands, but these are the most prominent and remarkable 

 of them." 



Under such a system a this, it is obvious that these common fields 

 must be ill cultivated. The intermixed lands cannot be treated 

 according to the improved rules of good husbandry. It is stated that 

 the simple re-distribution of intermixed lands, now held in parcels so 

 inconvenient in form and size as to be incapable of good husbandry, 

 would in many instances raise the fee-simple value of the lands from 

 15. or 17(. an acre to 3(>i. 



It was the opinion of witnesses examined before the parliamentary 

 committee of 1844, on Commons' Inclosure, that judicious inclosure 

 would make a large portion of common lands much more productive. 

 Open arable lands are so intermixed that effectual drainage is nearly 

 impossible. One witness said : " I have had occasion to go over two small 

 properties, about 150 acres each; one I found in 301 different pieces, 

 and another in a little more than a hundred. I mention this to show 

 how the lands are frequently intermixed ; they are therefore farmed at 

 much greater expense; and it is impossible to drain them on the 

 present improved mode of drainage, inasmuch as other parties are 

 occupying the furrow by which the water should pass off." In the 

 Midland counties, where there are these open arable fields, the course 

 is two crops and a fallow, and every third year the flocks run over the 

 whole field. The same witness considered that a fourth of all the 

 arable land was totally unproductive. In cases where common 

 arable fields have been subdivided and allotted, " the great improve- 

 ment is, that in the first place every man has his allotment, and he 

 deals with it as he pleases ; he drains it, and crops it upon a proper 

 course of cropping ; he puts it in seed and keeps sheep upon it; he 

 grows turnips and clover, or whatever he thinks proper." The same 

 witness was of opinion that the average improvement in the value of 

 common fields which had been inclosed was not less than 25 per cent. 

 Indeed, the evidence that was produced before the committee esta- 

 blished to a degree beyond what otherwise would be credible, the 

 immense inconvenience and loss which arise from the system of inter- 

 mixed lands, and their being also subject to commonage. 



As to Common Rights, that is, rights of pasture and so forth on 

 commons or warte lands, they are described generally under COMMON, 



ABTS AWD 8CL DIV. VOL. IV. 



RIGHTS OF. As to the common pasture lands, they also require an 

 improved management. It is stated that commons are generally over- 

 stocked, partly in consequence of- persons turning out more stock than 

 ;hey have a right to do, and partly by persons putting their stock on thfc 

 common who have no right. In consequence of commons being over- 

 stocked, they are profitable to nobody ; and a rule for regulating the 

 quantity of stock would therefore be beneficial to all persons who are 

 entitled to this right of common. Violent disputes also frequently 

 arise in consequence of the rights of parties to commonage not being 

 well defined. It is the opinion of competent judges that very great 

 advantage would result from stinting those parts of commons that are 

 not worth inclosure ; and that " it would be in many instances highly 

 desirable to inclose- portions of a common for the purpose of cultivation, 

 and to allot such portions of it, whilst it would be impolitic to do 

 more than stint other portions of it." A stint may be defined to be 

 " the right of pasturage for one animal, or for a certain number of 

 animals, according to age, size, and capability of eating." The com- 

 mons in fact are not now stinted by the levant and couchant right, 

 a right which cannot be brought into practical operation ; and besides 

 this there are many commons in gross. [COMMON, RIGHTS OF.] 



In 1836 an act (6 & 7 Win. IV. c. 115) was passed for facilitating 

 the inclosure of open and arable fields in England and Wales. The 

 preamble to the act is as follows : " Whereas there are in many 

 parishes, townships, and places in England and Wales, divers open and 

 common arable, meadow, and pasture lands and fields, and the lands of 

 the several proprietors of the same are frequently very much intermixed 

 and dispersed, and it would tend to the improved cultivation and occu- 

 pation of all the aforesaid lands, &c., and be otherwise advantageous 

 to the proprietors thereof, and persons interested therein, if they were 

 enabled by a general law to divide and inclose the same," &c. Inclosures 

 have been made under the provisions of this act, but the powers which 

 it gives are limited, for the " act applies solely to lands held in severalty 

 during some proportion of the year, with this exception, that slips and 

 balks intervening between the cultivated lands may be inclosed." The 

 lands which' cannot be inclosed under the provisions of this act are 

 " the uncultivated lands, the lands in a state of nature, intervening 

 between these cultivated lands, beyond those that are fairly to be con- 

 sidered as slips and balks." However, it was stated in evidence before 

 the committee of the House of Commons in 1844, that a large extent 

 of common and waste land had been illegally inclosed under the pro- 

 visions of the act, and the persons who hold such lands have no legal 

 title, and can only obtain one by lapse of time. The chief motive to 

 this dealing with commons appears to have been, that they thus got 

 the inclosure done cheaper than by applying to Parliament for a 

 private act. 



In 1844 a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed 

 "to inquire into the expediency of facilitating the inclosure and 

 improvement of commons and lands held in common, the exchange of 

 lands and the division of intermixed lands, and into the best means of 

 providing for the same, and to report their opinion to the House." The 

 committee made their report in favour of a general inclosure act, 

 after receiving a large amount of evidence from persons who were well 

 acquainted with the subject. The extracts that have been given in 

 this article are from the printed evidence that was taken before the 

 select committee. 



In pursuance of the recommendation of the committee, an Act of 

 Parliament was passed in 1845 (8 & 9 Viet. c. 118), the object of which 

 is thus stated in the preamble : " Whereas it is expedient to facilitate 

 the inclosure and improvement of commons and other lands now 

 subject to the rights of property which obstruct cultivation and the 

 productive employment of labour, and to facilitate such exchanges 

 of lands, and such divisions of lands intermixed or divided into incon- 

 venient parcels, as may be beneficial to the respective owners ; and it 

 is also expedient to provide remedies for the defective or incomplete 

 execution and for the non-execution of powers created by general and 

 local acts of inclosure, and to authorise the renewal of such powers in 

 certain cases," &c. 



It is not within the scope of this article to attempt to give any 

 account of the provisions contained in the 160 sections of this act ; 

 but a few provisions will be noticed that are important in an economical 

 and political point of view. 



The llth section contains a comprehensive description of lands 

 which may be inclosed under the act, in which the New Forest and the 

 Forest of Dean were excepted, but even with these portions have been 

 since inclosed, and the new plantations are fenced for a certain time. 

 The 14th section provides that no lands situated within fifteen miles of 

 the city of London, or within certain distances of other towns, which 

 distances vary according to the population, shall be subject to be in- 

 closed under the provisions of this act without the previous authority 

 of parliament iu each particular case. The 15th section provides 

 against inclosing town greens or village greens, and contains other 

 regulations as to them. The 30th section provides that an allotment 

 for the purposes of exercise and recreation for the inhabitants of a 

 neighbourhood may be required by the commissioners under the act, as 

 one of the terms and conditions of an inclosure of such lands as are 

 mentioned in 30. 



The 108th section makes regulations as to " the allotment which 

 upon any inclosure under this act shall be made for the labouring 



