FARMERS' REGISTER— RESULTS OF THE LAW OF ENCLOSURES. 



611 



it to be favored, or to the most thorough opposcrs of 

 the principles of free trade and industry in general. 



The law of enclosures and its eli'ects, exhibit a strik- 

 ing example of the long continued operation of the 

 preference given by our law to the business of cattle 

 raising, at the expense of grain raising — of a pre- 

 ference of grazing, to tillage. If then the policy is of 

 any value to even tlie favored class, whatever evils it 

 may produce, there should certainly be seen this one 

 good — increased products from live stock, and in- 

 creased pipfits to the owners. Upon tliis issue, we are 

 content to test the value of this part of the policy of 

 Virginia, and to abide by the decision, even on this pai"- 

 tial and limited view of the subject. 



Virginia is not the only country in which the in- 

 terests of tillage have been sacrificed to those (real or 

 supposed) of pasturage: but generally, theetFects have 

 been beneficial to the business and the persons so favor- 

 ed, however injurious to other classes, and to the ge- 

 neral interests of the country. Here, we are content 

 to reap all the evils of this kind of policy, without 

 deriving any of the benefits found elsewhei-e from 

 such a departure from right and justice. 



In the highlands of Scotland, owing to the peculiar 

 circumstances of the country, the profits of sheep 

 raising have been found to surpass all other returns of 

 agriculture. The consequence has been, that tillage 

 has been made to give place to pasturage. Thousands 

 of small farms, formerly held by tenants tilling the 

 soil, have been thrown together and converted to ex- 

 tensive sheep pastures, in which no human population 

 remains save a few shepherds, and scarcely a single 

 cottage, where there were formerly hamlets and vil- 

 lages, filled with numerous hardy laborers, with their 

 wives and children. The sheep have eaten out the 

 men. This state of things has served to drive from 

 Iheir homes, and compel the emigration of a people 

 the most devotedly attached to their native land, and 

 ■who would have preferred any fate short of starvation 

 in their own boloved country, to banishment from its 

 shores forever But in thus exchanging a population 

 of men for flocks of sheep, (however the cliange may 

 be deplored by the philanthropist and patriot) tiiere 

 lias at least been obtained the gain expected in wool 

 and mutton. 



In Ireland, where tythes are levied upon every pro- 

 duct of tillage, and of the small laud occupier who is 

 necessarily a tiller of the soil, the products of grass 

 land and live stock, have been kept free from this op- 

 pressive burden. The effect of this unjust exemption, 

 (unjust if the nation is to bear the burden at all) has 

 been, of course, to direct an undue proportion of land 

 and capital to the raising of cattle. But though the 

 effect of this state of things, is to keep out of tillage 

 (the more profitable use, but for this exemption,) a 

 vast extent of rich land — to increase the sufferings 

 and the discontents cf the oppressed and brutalized 

 peasantry — still the expected gain is found to the gra- 

 ziers in large products of cattle, and large annual ex- 

 ports of beef, butter and cheese. 



In Spain, the interests of the owners of pastures, 

 as well as arable land, have for centuries been sacri- 

 ficed to the established policy of the mesta, of whicli j 



an account has been given in our last number. 

 But though in this policy, as strange as it is unjust, 

 the interests of tillage and even of resident stock- 

 owners are sacrificed, to advance those of the owners 

 of the migratory flocks — and though the general in- 

 terests and public prosperity have been greatly im- 

 paired by this destructiou of private rights — still the 

 owners of the wandering merino sheep at least were 

 fattened by the spoil, and their business prospered 

 while all others suffered. If Spain remained poor, its 

 soil untitled, tlie country but half populated — yet there 

 was some little compensation found in the facts, that 

 the policy which caused these evils also served to 

 preserve the most numerous and valuable flocks, and 

 to produce the finest wool in Europe. 



Where, in Virginia, is the gain or advantage, private 

 or public, to compensate in the least for the interests 

 of tillage, and the rights of landed property, having 

 been sacrificed to the interests of grazing, and the 

 benefit of stock owners ? The whole soil of the state 

 is rendered by law a grazing common, for the use of 

 every one, unless when secured by a "lawful enclo- 

 sure," of enormous and useless expense, and which 

 after all, can never be made a practical safeguard 

 against trespassers. The cost of this policy to the 

 owners and tillers of the soil, has been already and 

 frequently discussed in this work, and is not now under 

 consideration. The present question before us is, 

 ivhat do the stock owners gain from the use of their 

 legal privileges? Let the general and notorious results 

 speak in answer. 



In the eastern half of Virginia, where the oppression 

 of this system is most severely felt by land owners, 

 there is not, and has not been for many years, any 

 surplus product whatever derived from the grazing of 

 live stock of any kind. So far from exporting any 

 such commodities, we buy from other states \'ery large 

 quantities of salted meat, butter, cheese, leather, can- 

 dles, and soap. The supplies of hogs and fat oxen 

 brought annually from the west in droves are enor- 

 mous, and have long been increasing — and most of our 

 horses and mules are now obtained in like manner. It 

 is a fact also worth notice, that the hogs thus driven to 

 us 500 miles, are generally raised in clover fields, or 

 within the farms and on the means of their respective 

 owners, and not by the benefit of the "wood, range," 

 or grazing in common, held so essential in Virginia. 

 We also buy barrelled pork fiom New England, where 

 the hcgs are generally kept altogether in sties, and had 

 no benefit whatever from grazing, or running at large. 



It is unnecessary' to carry these notorious facts more 

 into detail. Every one knows the general truth, and 

 has some idea of the magnitude of our import trade in 

 live stock and their products, and that this trade has 

 commenced, and has been regularly increasing to its 

 present enormous amount, under the operation of our 

 law of enclosures, and the preference it gives to stock 

 raising. If then the system has brought so little be- 

 nefit to tlie kind of property and its owners which it 

 was specially intended to favor, and is still supposed to 

 favor, we ask where are the benefits to be found, which 

 are paid for so dearly by land holders, and by tlie ge- 

 neral interests .' 



