METHODS OF ENCLOSING LAND 163 



private Act of Parliament. If four-fifths or sometimes a smaller 

 proportion, in number and value, of the parties interested, together 

 with the landowner and the tithe-owner, were agreed, the Enclosure 

 Bill received Parliamentary sanction. Commissioners were ap- 

 pointed who proceeded to make an award, consolidating the inter- 

 mixed lands of the open farm and dividing up the commons. Of 

 these private Enclosing Acts the earliest instance occurs in the 

 reign of James I. (4 Jac. I. c. 11). But it was not till the reign of 

 Anne that they became the recognised method of proceeding. 

 Even then the Acts were sometimes only confirmatory of arrange- 

 ments already made between the parties. In the reigns of George I., 

 George II., and George III., the number increased, at first slowly, 

 then rapidly. Acts for enclosing only wastes, in which pasture 

 commons were often included, must be distinguished from those 

 Acts which dealt, not only with pasture-commons, but also with 

 open arable fields and meadows, mown and grazed by the partners 

 in common. Of the first class, there were, in the first sixty years 

 of the eighteenth century, not more than 70 Acts, while from 1760 

 to 1815 there were upwards of 1000. Before 1760 the number of 

 Acts dealing more specifically with the open-field system did not 

 exceed 130. Between 1760 and 1815 the number rose to upwards 

 of 1800. Of the area of waste, open-field and common, actually 

 enclosed for the first tune, it is impossible to speak with any cer- 

 tainty. The quantity of land is often not mentioned in the 

 Enclosure Act, or can only be calculated from uncertain data. No 

 record is available for the area enclosed by private arrangement 

 or individual enterprise. It may, however, be safely estimated 

 that not less than 4 million acres were enclosed in England and 

 Wales within the period. Probably this figure was in reality con- 

 siderably exceeded ; possibly it might be, without exaggeration, 

 increased by two-thirds. 



Before 1790, in many parts of England, the process of enclosing 

 open-field farms and commons had been practically completed by 

 private arrangement without the expensive intervention of Parlia- 

 ment. At different dates, and with little or no legislative help, 

 the ancient system of cultivation, if it ever existed, had been almost 

 extinguished in the south-eastern counties of Suffolk and Essex ; 

 in the southern counties of Kent and Sussex ; in the south-western 

 counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall ; in the western coun- 

 ties of Hereford, Monmouth, Shropshire, and Stafford ; in the 



