1 82 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



accompanied for the most part by no such immediate and striking 

 changes. Even within the boundaries of the open-field country 

 it would tend rather to cramp than to destroy the three-field 

 husbandry. But it contributed its share to the social discomfort, 

 and increased the force of the reaction against inclosure in general. 

 If the extent of these inclosures and their social effects be 

 reduced to something like the real proportions, sympathy with 

 the inevitable pain of an era of social and economic transition 

 need not be thereby diminished. We may still appreciate the suf- 

 ferings, mental, as well as physical, of those who, rooted in tradi- 

 tion, bound by custom, abhorring innovation, were nevertheless 

 pushed onward amidst vociferous complaint by irresistible and to 

 them incomprehensible forces. They ascribed their ills to many 

 causes, but below the surface we may discern the silent yet far- 

 reaching effects of the general uplifting in western Europe not 

 only of new price levels, but of new culture levels. 



