GLOUCESTERSHIRE IN 1794 ANrt 1807 231 



so hard, that scarce a blade of grass or even a thistle escapes them ; 

 and this management is thought essentially necessary, especially 

 on the stiff soils, to keep them in good order, such soils being too 

 hard to plough in very dry weather, and, of course, not eligible in 

 wet. The grass and weeds, without this expedient, would often 

 get so much ahead as not to be afterwards conquered." 



Another agricultural Report on Gloucestershire ^ was presented 

 in 1807. The Reporter mentions that, in the reign of George III., 

 " more than seventy Acts have passed the ParHament for inclosing 

 or laying into severalty." " By these proceedings, the landlord 

 and occupier are benefited ; the former in an advance of rent, the 

 latter in the increase of crops. On the Cotswolds, many thousand 

 acres are brought into cultivation, which before were productive 

 of Httle more than furze and a few scanty blades of grass. In the 

 Vale, by the inclosure of common fields, lands have been laid 

 together, and rescued from the immemorial custom, or routine of 

 orops — wheat, beans, and fallow ; and the farmers have found, to 

 their great advantage, that clover, vetches and turnips may be 

 raised in the fallow year, which was before attended only with 

 labour and expense." The Reporter enumerates five advantages 

 resulting from enclosure of common field farms : — (1) an increase 

 of crops and rent ; (2) the commutation of tithes ; (3) the drainage 

 of the land ; (4) the removal of the injury and cause of disputes 

 occasioned by turning on the head- and fore-lands of neighbours ; 

 (5) the encouragement of population. Of the advantages of enclos- 

 ing common pastures or wastes he is equally convinced ; " the 

 common or waste lands in the Vale are seldom stinted to a definite 

 •quantity of stock in proportion to the number of acres occupied ; 

 but the cottager claims by custom to stock equally with the largest 

 landholder. It is justly questioned whether any profit accrues to 

 ■either from the depasturing of sheep, since the waste commons, 

 being under no agricultural management, are usually poisoned by 

 stagnated water, which corrupts or renders unwholesome the 

 herbage, producing rot, and other diseases in the miserable animals 

 that are turned adrift to seek their food there." Since 1794 Corse 

 C!ommon had been enclosed. From the results the Reporter of 1807 

 illustrates some of the benefits of enclosure. " The supposed 

 advantages derived by cottagers, in having food for a few sheep and 

 geese on a neighbouring common, have usually been brought for- 

 1 Rudge's Oloucestershire (1807), pp. 89, 250. 



