504 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



or fields,*' of nearly equal size, and generally three in number, to receive, in constant 

 rotation, the triennial succession of fallow, wheat (or rye), and spring crops (as barley, 

 oats, beans, and peas) : thus adopting and promoting a system of husbandry, which, 

 howsoever improper it is become, in these more enlightened days, was well adapted to the 

 state of ignorance, and vassalage, of feudal times; when each parish or township had its 

 sole proprietor ; the occupiers being at once his tenants and his soldiers, or meaner vassals. 

 The lands were in course liable to be more or less deserted by their occupiers, and left to 

 the feebleness of the young, the aged, and the weaker sex. But the whole township 

 being, in this manner, thrown into one system, the care and management of the live stock 

 at least, would be easier and better than they would have been under any other 

 arrangement. And, at all times, the manager of the estate was better enabled to 

 detect bad husbandry, and enforce that which was more profitable to the tenants and 

 the estate, by having the whole spread under the eye at once, than he would have been, 

 had the lands been distributed in detached unenclosed farmlets ; besides avoiding the 

 expense of enclosure. And another advantage arose from this more social arrangement, 

 in barbarous times : the tenants, by being concentrated in villages, were not only best 

 situated to defend each other from predatory attacks ; but were called out, by their lord, 

 with greater readiness, in cases of emergency. Therefore, absurd as the common -field 

 system is, in almost every particular, at tliis day, it was admirably suited to the circum- 

 stances of the times in which it originated ; the plan having been conceived in wisdom, 

 and executed with extraordinary accuracy, as appears in numberless instances, even 

 at this distance of time. 



3241 . Uninhabited tracts or forests. In different parts of Britain there were and still 

 are extensive tracts of land, some of them of a valuable quality, which lie nearly in a 

 state of wild nature, which were never inhabited, unless by freebooters and homebred 

 savages. These uninhabited tracts are styled forests ; and heretofore, many or most of them 

 have been attached to the crown ; and some of them are still under royal patronage. 

 Whether they were originally set out for royal pastime, merely, or whether the timber 

 which stood on them was of peculiar value, or whether, at the time of laying out town- 

 ships, those tracts were impenetrable woods, inhabited by wild beasts, and, when these 

 were destroyed, or sufficiently overcome to render them objects of diversion, were taken 

 under the protection of the crown, is not, perhaps, well ascertained. There were also 

 tracts of that description in different parts of England, but which appear, evidently, to 

 have been enclosed from a state of woodland or common pasture ; though it is possible 

 they may have been nominally attached to neighboring parishes. Of this description, 

 principally, are the Wealds of Kent and Sussex, and many other old enclosed lands, in 

 different parts of the kingdom, whose fields or enclosures are of irregular shapes, and 

 their fences crooked. These woodland districts are like the forest lands, divided into manors, 

 which have not an intimate connexion or correspondence with parishes or townships : a 

 further evidence, that they were in a wild state, when the feudal organization took place. 



3242. In the western extreme of the island, the common-field systejn has never, per- 

 haps, been adopted ; has certainly never been prevalent, as in the more central parts of 

 England. There, a very different usage would seem to have been early established, and 

 to have continued to the present time, when lords of manors have the privilege of letting 

 off the lands of common pastures, to be broken up for corn ; the tenant being restricted 

 to two crops ; after which the land is thrown open again to pasturage. And it is at least 

 probable, that the lands of that country have been cleared from wood, and brought into 

 a state of cultivation, through similar means. At present, they are judiciously laid out, 

 in farms of different sizes, with square straight lined enclosures, and with detached farm- 

 steads, situated witliin their areas ; the villages being generally small and mean ; the 

 mere^ residences of laborers. Circumstances these are, which strongly evince that the 

 common field system never took place, in this part of the island, as it did in the more 

 central parts of England. Ireland, also, lias been enclosed (though not fenced) from 

 time immemorial. 



3243. The feudal organization having lost its original basis, has itself been mouldering 

 away, more particularly during the last century. A great majority of the appropriated 

 common-field lands and commons have been jjartially, or wholly enclosed; either by 

 piecemeal, each proprietor enclosing his own slip, a very inconvenient mode of enclosure, or 

 by general consent, the whole of the proprietors agreeing to commit their lands to the care 

 and judgment of arbiters, or commissioners, who, restoring the fields to their original 

 intirety, reparceled them out, in a manner more convenient to the several proprietors, 

 and laid each man's portion, which had consisted of numberless narrow slips, in one or 

 more well shaped grounds. 



3244. In England this requires to be effected by a separate act of parliament for each enclosure. In 

 these acts coimnissioners are named, or directed to be chosen by the proprietors, who, according to certain 

 instructions in the act or law, and the general principles of equity, divide the township among all who hav 

 an interest in it. It appears by the statute books, that from the year 1774 to the year 1813, no fewer than 

 two thousand six hundred and thirty-two acts of enclosure have been passed; the average in the first 

 twenty years being thirty-seven, and in the last twenty years ninety-four. 



