The Making of the Land. 231 



support the small number of beasts and poultry of which his 

 property consists. When the cold of winter sets in, the more 

 prudent of these small tenants board their sheep with farmers 

 (who have more lands than are necessary to keep their own 

 livestock) at the rate of 2.s. to 2.s. 'od. per score per week ; and 

 part of each Sunday is employed by the cottagers in a visit to 

 their sheep, which by such means are as well cared for as the 

 farmer's. The number of each man's cows is apportioned to 

 the size of his haystack, which is intended to supply them 

 with sufficient fodder throughout the season when commons 

 are bare. How then would Mr. Lamporte provide for this class 

 in his proposals to plough up all commons ? How would the 

 poor find a substitute for their common of pasturage and 

 timbering?" pertinently asks this champion of vested in- 

 terests.^ 



No one, we have said, has ever answered that question in a 

 satisfactory manner, though more than a century has lapsed 

 since it was asked. Our statesmen have attempted to cope 

 with the difficulty it suggests by such inadequate equivalents 

 as labourers' allotments and small holdings, the cultivation of 

 which cannot fail to occupy some of the precious working 

 hours to which the employers of rural labour would otherwise 

 lay claim. A man who has done a good day's work for some 

 one else should not be in an effective condition to labour some 

 extra hours daily in his own ploughland. On this account the 

 rights of commonage were invaluable, affording the cottager 

 quite as much, if not more, remuneration for lighter labour, 

 and leaving him, when daylight reappeared on the morrow, 

 fully competent to perform a good day's work for a good day's 

 wage on his master's holding. 



Before we conclude this subject of enclosure, let us point out 

 that the direction in which the State encouraged the enclosure 

 system in these early times was unfortunate. By means of 

 the bounty on corn it brought about the conversion of much 

 wild pasturage into wheat-producing soil. In the present con- 

 dition of the grain markets we have cause to regret bitterly 



» Id. l\>kh 



