152 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



that the hilly, forested, northwestern corner in which were situ- 

 ated the townships above noted had relatively more open field in 

 Tudor times than had the amiable plains round Hereford. Since 

 the Leintwardine and Lye awards are in their areas entirely 

 representative of parliamentary enclosures in Herefordshire, the 

 fraction which seems to reflect conditions in the northwest may 

 not after all be inapplicable to the entire county. At least it 

 becomes probable that a very considerable amount of arable open 

 field, once existent, disappeared without leaving record of itself 

 in parliamentary act or award; and one can scarcely avoid 

 the inference that private agreement and piecemeal enclosure 

 were operative in this process. 



At what period between the days of Henry VIII and those of 

 George III the decay of the old fields was most rapid is not easily 

 ascertainable. It cannot have been before the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, since the Jacobean surveys show no marked 

 encroachments upon the arable. Surveys later than these are not 

 to be had, though glebe terriers might throw light upon the sub- 

 ject, as they have upon similar matters in Oxfordshire.^ Until 

 information from them or from some other source is forthcoming, 

 the decades during which the old field system fell most rapidly 

 into decrepitude must remain in doubt. 



Why piecemeal enclosure was so much more prevalent in Here- 

 fordshire than in Oxfordshire can only be conjectured. In general 

 during the sixteenth century the western counties appear to have 

 been much more inclined to pasture farming than were the mid- 

 lands. To judge from the respective values assigned to arable, 

 meadow, and pasture in the contemporary surveys, this preference 

 implies progress. An acre of pasture was usually worth at least 

 half as much again as an acre of arable, and an acre of meadow 

 was easily worth twice as much.^ Conversion of the arable, 

 therefore, meant an increase in values and income. The fact that 



^ I have not been able to examine the glebe terriers for Herefordshire, and do not 

 know to what extent they are available. 



* According to a survey of i Edward VI, the open-field arable at Horton, 

 Gloucestershire, was worth from 6d. to 12 d. the acre, the enclosed pasture from 

 I s. 6d. to 3 s., and the meadow from 35. to 5 s. (Rents, and Survs., Portf. 2/46, 

 flF. 92-104). 



