xviii PREFACE 



but over those portions of the estate known as common or 

 waste, in some instances held conjointly, in respect of 

 certain privileges, with freeholders and copyholders or their 

 tenants, and in other cases vested entirely in the " lord of 

 the manor." 



Since the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) no manors, with 

 all their incidents and franchises, have been granted in Eng- 

 land. Land acquirement at that period for purposes of cul- 

 tivation was unquestionably acute and resulted in the Peasants' 

 Revolt (1381) ; and it was not till the time of Elizabeth and 

 onward to Anne that relaxation was shown by lords of manors 

 in keeping the peasants from working on the land to their 

 own benefit, while they and freeholders lost no opportunity 

 of inclosing waste land adjacent to and corresponding with 

 the respective frontages. Thus the greens, commons, and 

 lanes were much restricted by the land hunger of the privileged 

 classes, and this condition of things continued more or less 

 till legislative enactments intervened. 



On the land enclosed from waste, many, if not most, of 

 the cottages with their gardens and adjacent crofts or small 

 fields were founded, and became by the time of George 

 III Farmer George a feature of rural Britain. The land- 

 owners at the latter part of the eighteenth and beginning of 

 the nineteenth century had, judging from the age of the 

 standard fruit trees in the gardens and orchards in 1845, 

 granted holdings of land on their estates proportionate to the 

 requirements of the progressive labourers and other persons 

 with agri-horticultural proclivities on which to employ their 

 spare or whole time advantageously to themselves, while the 

 landlord's interest was protected in respect of rent and influence. 



At that date (1845) the sporting interest was limited to 

 nature-produced game on many, if not most, estates, and the 

 cultivators of the soil had practically a free hand in dealing 



