1 66 READINGS IN RURAL I.CONOMU S 



remarked, there could be eviction or eviction and decay of the 

 house simply or accompanied by a severaling of open-field strips 

 without inclosure and without conversion, and vice -irrsti there 

 could be inclosure or even inclosure and conversion (under a 

 convertible husbandry) without the decay of a husbandman's house. 

 Decay might be associated with conversion to pasture without new 

 inclosure, not only in the old inclosed districts, but, if the returns 

 of 1607 are to be trusted, in the open-field country. In view of 

 these complications it has seemed advisable, in constructing the 

 inclosure map, to summarize results as little as possible, and by 

 the use of a number of distinctive signs, even at the risk of taxing 

 eyesight and patience, to give a full and unbiased graphical 

 translation of the record. But, in the accompanying table, pre- 

 senting in abbreviated form some of the statistical results of an 

 analysis of the returns of 1517 and 1607, I have preferred not to 

 burden the page with the minuter distinctions of tabulation. The 

 subjoined figures illustrating the extent of the inclosure movement 

 will be confined, therefore, to the acreage affected in each county, 

 with its percentage of the total land area of the county, the number 

 of villages or hamlets from which returns are forthcoming, the 

 number of houses of husbandry decayed or turned into cottages 

 with little or no land, and, finally, the number of persons men- 

 tioned as displaced by the agricultural change, though, owing to 

 the variable character of the returns in regard to this last item, 

 the figures are of inferior value. 



To those acquainted with what has been already published of 

 these inquisitions, it scarcely needs remark that any statistical 

 tabulation of their data must bt open to cavil. Historical statistics 

 at best are rarely satisfactory, and the entries which in this instance 

 furnish the raw material are themselves often so vague or deficient 

 that statistical deductions, though made in each individual case 

 with the most cautious objectivity, leave a residuum of misgiving. 

 It is often difficult, for example, to determine whether entries 

 found in the supplementary inquisitions of 1518 are or are not 

 duplicates of those of the returns of 1517. Virgates and caru- 

 cates must be reduced to acres by some kind of a county average. 

 Texts that are in part illegible or obscurely worded must be 



