70 ENCLOSURES, 1770-1820 



' The vast benefit,' says Arthur Young,' ' of enclosmg 

 can, upon inferior soils, be rarely seen in a more advan- 

 tageous light than upon Lincoln Heath. I found a large 

 range which formerly was covered with heath, gorse, &c., 

 and yielding, in fact, little or no produce, converted, by 

 enclosure, to profitable arable farms ; let, on an average, 

 at 10s. an acre ; and a very extensive country, all studded 

 with new farmhouses, barns, offices, and every appearance 

 of thriving industry; nor is the extent small, for these 

 heaths extend near seventy miles.' Nor were these excep- 

 tional cases ; they might be paralleled in every county in 

 the United Kingdom. 



But enclosures aimed at more than the extinction of open- 

 field farms. Wastes and commons were also to be fenced 

 and reclaimed. In 1773 Arthur Young drew attention to 

 the extent of land lying waste in his ' Observations on the 

 Present State of Waste Lands of Great Britain.' The Re- 

 port of the Committee of the Board of Agriculture upon 

 Enclosures states that twenty-two million acres of land lay 

 waste, of which England had 6,259,470 acres, Wales 

 1,629,307 acres, Scotland 14,218,221. acres. To this re- 

 port is annexed a valuable sketch of the old law of wastes 

 and commons, presented by the Surveyor-General of Wood& 

 and Forests. The surveyor held that the common law 

 annexed rights of common to all manors because of the in- 

 ducement they afforded cultivators to till their land as 

 arable farms, but that since the introduction of roots and 

 artificial grasses no such need existed. If commons were 

 unlimited, lords of manors might enclose ; if stinted, com- 

 moners were often owners of the soil. The earliest method 

 of enclosure was by writs of partition or admeasurement. 

 But the proceedings were so costly that they were little 

 ' Agr'icvltnral Sktvcij of Linrohii^hirr, 1790, pp. 77-8. 



