ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 5 



in the cultivated parts of England and Wales, and 

 the residue in the mountain districts. Of this great 

 extent they considered that one million acres might 

 be cultivated with profit and advantage to the county, 

 and that when this was effected there would still remain 

 about one-sixth part of England and Wales open and 

 uninclosed, and subject to common rights an extent 

 so great as to show how erroneous had been the ap- 

 prehensions of the speedy inclosure of Commons. 



Two years later, however, the same Commission 

 presented a report to Parliament with a very different 

 tale. They had, in the interval, made a detailed 

 examination of the tithe commutation awards, which 

 covered the whole country, and showed distinctly how 

 much in 1834 was Common land. By this it appeared 

 that there were at that time no more than 2,630,000 

 acres of Common or Commonable land, or five and a half 

 millions less than their previous estimate. From this a 

 deduction has to be made of land inclosed under private 

 Acts between 1834 and 1845, and under the Commons 

 Act of 1876, and also of land which has been niched 

 from Commons under the Statute of Merton.* Making a 

 rough estimate of these inclosures, it is probable that 

 there remain from 2,000,000 to 2,250,000 acres of 

 Commons still open. Of this, a very small proportion 

 is believed to be suitable for cultivation as arable land. 

 The remainder is either mountain land, which it would 

 not be worth while to inclose with fences, or inferior 

 land in cultivated districts or near to towns, which 



* Deduction was made of inclosures under the Act of 1845. 



