I30 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



in (5) oats, (6) fallow, (7) wheat, (8) peas. After this came the 

 new rotation, (i) turnips, (2) barley with seeds, (3) grass mowed, 

 (4) grass pastured by sheep. The innovation lay in the direction 

 of turnip and grass cultivation, half of the wheat crop having 

 been replaced by hay, and the sheep being pastured on a sward 

 rather than on fallow ground. Upon the fields the effect of this 

 eight-course arrangement was the formation of small areas, no 

 longer even formally named " quarters." Once, however, Be- 

 tween the Hedges is referred to as the " Clover quarter," and 

 elsewhere we hear of the " Turnip division." If the other town- 

 ships of northern Oxfordshire which in the awards have such 

 confusing field divisions owed them to the same cause, an eight- 

 course rotation of crops or something similar must have been 

 well known at the very time when parliamentary enclosure was 

 beginning. 



All this, of course, implies marked improvement in open-field 

 agriculture. Although the eight-course rotation may perhaps be 

 looked upon as a special refinement, not widespread, there can 

 be no doubt about the extent and importance of four-field and 

 four-course arrangements. They probably constituted the preva- 

 lent method of open-field cultivation in Oxfordshire in 1750. 

 The enclosure history of the townships in which they prevailed 

 seems, moreover, to warrant a generalization. So long as the 

 three-field system maintained itself intact, landlord and tenants 

 were inclined to rest content and allow the fields to remain open. 

 For this reason the district southeast of Oxford round about 

 Thame, which clung to its three fields until into the nineteenth 

 century, was the last part of the county to undergo enclosure. 

 Where, however, four-field and eight-field husbandry had come 

 to prevail, as they had in the north and west of the county, 

 enclosure was favored. The tenants, already in advance of the 

 inhabitants of three-field townships, were prepared to outstrip 

 them still more. As soon as parliamentary facilities were offered, 

 acceptance was general; within two or three decades nearly all 

 of the north and west became enclosed. Great Tew itself yielded 

 in 1767, thereby revealing, it would seem, a connection between 

 the eight-course rotation upon its much-divided fields and this 



