JOHN AND EDWARD LAURENCE 151 



is struck which sounded more loudly as towns grew, as, with their 

 growth, the demand increased for meat, milk, and butter, as agri- 

 culture improved, as communication was facilitated. The author, 

 the Rev. John Laurence, Rector of Bishops Wearmouth, treats 

 open-field farms as obstacles to agricultural progress. He insists 

 on enclosures and separate occupation as the best means of increas- 

 ing produce and of raising rents. He dwells on the rapid progress 

 which enclosures were then making, points out the great rise in 

 rental value consequent on increased produce, and argues that so 

 far from injuring the poor, enclosures will rather create a new demand 

 for labour by the introduction of improved tillage and pasture- 

 farming, will give employment in fencing and ditching, and remove 

 the attractions of wastes and open spaces, which " draw to them 

 the poor and necessitous only for the advantage of pilfering and 

 stealing." In The Duty of a Steward to Ms Lord (1727) Edward 

 Laurence, himself a land-surveyor, and apparently agent to the 

 Duke of Buckingham, argues the case from the point of view of 

 better and more economical management. A new skilled pro- 

 fession was growing up. It is prophetic of future changes that 

 Laurence points out the evils of employing " country- Attorneys 

 (not skilled in Husbandry) " in the management of landed property, 

 and argues that the gentry should allow handsome salaries to their 

 stewards, who could, if inadequately paid, adopt other means of 

 enriching themselves. A champion of " engrossing," he insists on 

 the advantages of consolidating small holdings in larger farms. He 

 urges stewards to prevent piecemeal enclosures by individuals, to 

 substitute leaseholds for copyholds, to buy up any freeholds on the 

 estate which lie in intermixed strips, as necessary preliminaries to 

 any successful and general scheme for the enclosure of open-fields 

 and commons. The other side to the picture is vigorously painted 

 by John Cowper in his Essay proving that Inclosing Commons and 

 Common-Field-Lands is Contrary to the Interest of the Nation (1732). 

 He answers the arguments of the two Laurences, arguing that 

 enclosures necessarily injure the small freeholder and the poor, and 

 pleading that, so far from encouraging labour, they depopulate the 

 villages in which they have been carried out. Speaking of the 

 small freeholder, he says that " none are more industrious, none 

 toil and labour so hard. ... I myself have seen within these 30 

 years, above 20 Lordships or parishes enclosed, and everyone 

 of them has thereby been in a manner depopulated. If 



