The Making of the Land. 225 



neighbours prejudiced in favour of old customs. At last he 

 got them to partially adopt his plans, but not without an 

 express stipulation on their part for one white crop more than 

 he had intended. The open fields were henceforth marked 

 out into six divisions. Turnips were sown on a good fallow, 

 hoed, fed with the sheep of the occupiers, and then barley 

 sown on the stale furrow. Two jT'ears' seeds followed, then 

 wheat, and lastly oats or pease. The writer adds that he 

 pleaded in vain for the substitution of a third year's seeds in 

 lieu of the last course. He seems to have had quite enough 

 to contend with in arranging an equitable procedure, so that 

 nobody should complain of unfairness. The seeds were all of 

 one quality, paid for proportionably by each occupier, whose 

 rights of subsequent sheep pasturage were stinted in propor- 

 tion to the area sown by him. The shepherds were paid on a 

 like system, and were supervised by field reeves, who saw that 

 they folded the various flocks each night on a different holding, 

 and regulated the sowing so that everybody shared equally in 

 the profits of the process. 



On the wisdom of converting the open wastes into enclosures 

 the views of agriculturists were divided. Some districts of 

 this description, such as the marshy ground about Exeter, 

 were unanimously admitted capable of improvement if sub- 

 mitted to an economy which wotild promote drainage ; but in 

 the opinion, for example, of the Society of Farmers already 

 alluded to, " stiff clay, with little or no staple of mould, abso- 

 lute heaths, where no other verdure would grow, and chalky 

 soils, with a thin laj^er of turf barely sufficient to cover the 

 hard barren rock," were best left alone. It was in vain to point 

 out to such old-fashioned husbandmen as these that the young 

 stock now starving throughout the cold season on commons, 

 would, if kept on turnips in the winter months, and sheltered 

 at night till they attained two years of age, hardly know that 

 they had passed through a couple of winters ; that thus ren- 

 dered less liable to disorders, they would, when matured and 

 butchered, " throw oif hides and skins, to say nothing of the 

 tallow, of a far superior quality as well as size, and that at a 

 less expense of dressing " ; lastly, that it was more economical 



n. Q 



