ENCLOSURES, 1770-1820 65 



for bread and meat. Self-sufficing agriculture was an 

 anachronism. How was the new condition to be met ? 

 Arthur Young was ready with his answer. ' Large farms 

 and large capital ' was his interpretation of the problem 

 set by the manufacturer to the agriculturist. He pro- 

 claimed a crusade against open fields. As a practical 

 farmer, the sight of good land yielding poor crops gave 

 him pain ; but he had better grounds for his hostility. 

 Here and there the villagers had appointed field-reeves to 

 direct agricultural operations ; but, speaking generally, the 

 farming of the old agrarian communities had deteriorated 

 since the sixteenth century. They could make no use of 

 improved methods of cultivation, rotations of crops, or 

 machinery. Enterprising men were hampered by the 

 apathy of less active partners. If one farmer drained his 

 land, the others stopped up the main drain so that his land 

 was swamped. The strips were too narrow to admit 

 of cross-harrowing or cross-ploughing. Xo winter crops 

 could be grown because common rights of pasture were en- 

 joyed over the arable fields. Half the day was wasted in 

 going to and fro between the difierent parcels ; the expense 

 of reaping or carting was enormously increased when 

 crops lay in little, remote, and distant strips. Innumerable 

 footpaths to the various closes cut up and contracted the 

 available land. Litigation was perpetual, since self- 

 interested farmers ploughed up the common balks or 

 headlands, moved their neighbours' landmarks, and filched 

 their land or crops. As Tusser said two centuries before 

 of common field farmers, — 



Some champions agree 

 As wasp doth with bee. 



The manure of the live stock was wasted on the commons 



F 



