50 Beginning of Modern Farming 



other writers, nor the prayers in the first Prayer Book of 

 Edward VI. By far the strongest force at work in society at that 

 time arose from the prospect of gain offered to men who were 

 in a position to carry through enclosures. They alone worked 

 with a clear purpose. When the throne itself and vast estates 

 had been the object of wars costly in blood and treasure, there 

 could be few scruples on the part of men about displacing some 

 scores of small cultivators to secure the power and wealth which 

 come from the possession of a compact estate. Enclosure went on 

 from the thirteenth century to the nineteenth, and not in those 

 600 years were men able to find a scheme which would give scope 

 to progressive aspirations and satisfy the instinct which insistently 

 demands fair play between one man and another, or one class and 

 another. 1 



By the beginning of the seventeenth century England was 

 committed to the system of farming which in a highly developed 

 form prevails to-day. During 150 years half a million acres had 

 been changed from open fields cultivated in common, or from 

 common pasture and waste, to farms cultivated and managed by 



1 It is only in recent years that anything has been done to harmonize these 

 two demands of human nature. In 1915 and 1916 the British Government 

 issued two ordinances which define a system of holding and using land in the 

 Protectorates of East Africa and Nigeria. The following quotations from the 

 ordinance applying to Nigeria will give an idea of the system : * The whole of 

 the lands of Northern Provinces, whether occupied or unoccupied on the date 

 of the commencement of this Ordinance, are hereby declared to be native 

 lands. . . . All native lands, and all rights over the same, are hereby declared 

 to be under the control and subject to the disposition of the Governor, and 

 shall be held and administered for the use and common benefit of the natives ; 

 and no title to the occupation and use of any such lands shall be valid without 

 the consent of the Governor. ... It shall be lawful for the Governor (a) to 

 grant rights of occupancy to natives and to non-natives ; (b) to demand a 

 rental for the use of any native lands granted to any native or non-native ; 

 and (c) to revise the said rental in the case of (agricultural) land at intervals of 

 not more than seven years. . . . Except with the consent of the Secretary of 

 State no single right of occupancy granted to a non-native shall exceed 1,200 

 acres if granted for agricultural purposes, or 12,500 acres if granted for grazing 

 purposes.' 



