128 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 



as are the horses of common-field farmers." Nor is it any tjrranny 

 for the majority to enforce enclosure where the whole body of 

 partners are not unanimous. At Catthorp one man with common 

 for seven sheep stood out. The rest overruled him ; but he lost 

 nothing. All that the other commoners did was to enclose their 

 portions of the common away from him. That the agricultural 

 gain is great, scarcely admits of a doubt. On open-fields the corn- 

 land is worn out. It can only be induced to bear at all by constant 

 ploughings and hberal manurings, which absorb all profits in labour 

 and charges. Even then there is often httle more than a bare 

 return of seed, poor in quahty — " small humble-Bee-Ears with 

 little grains." The pease land is no better ; it may provide enough 

 for seed and keep of the horses ; but it yields no clear profit. The 

 live-stock that are reared on the commons are dwarfed and under- 

 sized ; they are driven long distances to and fro, so that they have 

 neither rest nor quiet. Colts, raised on the commons, by cold and 

 famine come to no good. " Cattle, nurtured there, grow to such 

 brockish and starved stature " that, living, they grieve the o"UTier's 

 eye, and, dead, deceive the Commonwealth. Sheep do better ; but 

 they even are so pinched that they make httle profit. One sheep 

 in an enclosure is worth two on a common. There are five rots in 

 the open-fields to one rot in enclosed land. The commons are 

 over-stocked. They are, says Moore, " Pest-houses of disease for 

 cattle. Hither come the Poor, the Bhnde, Lame, Tired, Scabbed, 

 Mangie, Rotten, Murrainous." No order is kept ; but milch cows, 

 young beasts, sheep, horses, swine — often unringed — and geese are 

 turned out together. Furze and heath are encouraged by com- 

 moners, because they keep cattle and sheep aHve in hard winter 

 when fodder is scarce ; but the same space covered with grass 

 Avould be more useful. That which is every man's is no man's, 

 and no one tries to better the commons. When it is everybody's 

 interest to improve the pasture, it is nobody's business to do the 

 work. 



The whole subject of enclosures had yet to be fought out. From 

 the point of view of production, the change was desirable ; no 

 pressure of population as yet made it necessary. Commons were 

 essential to the existence of those open-field farms, which advocates 

 of agricultural imj)rovement recognised as an obstacle to pro- 

 gress ; but new methods and new resources had as yet hardly 

 advanced beyond theories. Neither the argument from increased 



