246 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 



tice with the commoners to take all their cattle off the fens upon the 

 approach of winter ; but some of the worst of the neat cattle, with 

 the horses, — and particularly those upon Wildmore Fen, — are left 

 to abide the event of the winter season ; and it seldom happens 

 that of the neat cattle many escape the effects of a severe winter. 

 The horses are driven to such distress for food that thej^ eat up every 

 remaining dead thistle, and are said to devour the hair off the 

 manes and tails of each other and also the dung of geese." A 

 second Reporter ^ (1799), Arthur Young, speaks of " Avhole acres " 

 in Wildmore Fen as " covered with thistles and nettles four feet 

 high and more. There are men that have vast numbers of geese, 

 even to 1000 and more. ... In 1793 it was estimated that 40,000 

 sheep, or one per acre, rotted on the three fens {i.e. on East and West 

 and Wildmore Fens). So wild a country nurses up a race of people 

 as wHd as the fen ; and thus the morals and eternal welfare of 

 numbers are hazarded and ruined for Avant of an inclosure. . . . 

 In discourse at Louth upon the characters of the poor, observations 

 were made upon the consequences of great commons in nursing 

 up a mischievous race of people ; and instanced that, on the very 

 day we were talking, a gang of villains w^ere brought to Louth gaol 

 from Coningsby, who had committed numberless outrages upon 

 cattle and com ; laming, killing, cutting off tails, and wounding a 

 variety of cattle, hogs, and sheep ; and that many of them were 

 commoners on the immense fens of East, West, and Wildmore." 



These descriptions apph- to commons under the best regulations. 

 Deeping Fens may be taken as examples of the ordinary manage- 

 ment of Lincolnshire commons in the fen districts. " Thej^ stand," 

 thinks the Reporter of 1794,^ " very much in need of inclosing and 

 draining, as the cattle and sheep depastured thereon are very 

 unhealthy. The occupiers frequently, in one season, lose four 

 fifths of their stock. These commons are without stint, and almost 

 every cottage within the manors has a common right belonging 

 to it. Every kind of depredation is made upon this land in cutting 

 up the best of the turf for fuel ; and the farmers in the neighbour- 

 hood, having common rights, avaihng themselves of a fine season, 

 turn on 7 or 800 sheep each, to ease their inclosed land, whilst the 

 mere cottager cannot get a bite for a cow ; but yet the cottager, in 

 his turn, in a colourable way, takes the stock of a foreigner as his 

 own, who occasionally turns on immense quantities of stock in good 

 ^ Young's Lincolnshire (1799), p. 223. * Stone's Lincolnshire, p. 22. 



