SELF-SUFFICING FAEMINQ 3 



district village communities never prevailed. The culti- 

 vated land is divided into little patches by the high Devon- 

 shire hedge ; common parish fields can hardly be traced ; 

 fewer of the inhabitants are collected into villages, more 

 are scattered in single houses. The small enclosures sug- 

 gest that Devonshire was never peopled by Teutonic in- 

 vaders ; like Brittany, it is a country of hedges. 



On this system the permanent separation of arable land 

 from pasture hardly constitutes an advance in agricultural 

 practice. It was probably introduced into this country by 

 a people accustomed, like the Anglo-Saxons, to a drier and 

 less variable climate. Yet this alien system for centuries 

 governed the cultivation of two-thirds of England. Tufts 

 of trees, conspicuous in the hedgeless expanse of land by 

 which they were surrounded, marked the sites of villages, 

 as they still do in the high table-land of the Pays de 

 Caux. Within the ' tun,' or enclosure, were the tofts and 

 crofts of substantial peasants and the cottages and curti- 

 lages of the cottagers, ' fenced al aboute with stikkes.' 

 These were the only property held by the members of 

 the township in several ownership. They were also origi- 

 nally the onh" permanent enclosures. But as agriculture 

 advanced, yards (' gerstuns,' or garstons) for rearing stock, 

 or for the oxen which could not ' endure his warke to labour 

 all daye, and then to be put to the commons or before the 

 herdsman,' were enclosed in the immediate proximity of 

 the village. In these enclosures, or ' happy garstons,' as 

 they were called at Aston Boges, were held the village 

 merry-makings, the rush-bearings, the May-games, the sum- 

 merings at St. John Baptist's Eve, the public breakfasts, 

 and the distribution of bread and ale in Rogation week. 



Beyond the village lay the common arable fields, in- 

 cluding the driest and soundest land. These fields were 



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