I 70 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



in the eighteenth century, and as it had probably existed for some 

 time. The unit of the system was the farm, an area apparently 

 comprising from thirty to four hundred acres, but usually less 

 than one hundred, and requiring for its cultivation a plough of 

 four horses, or at times more than one jjlough. The tenants were 

 in general from two to four, although the number might increase 

 to six or eight, apart from cottagers attached to the farm. Ten- 

 ants and cottagers lived together in a cluster of houses, and their 

 horses were joined to form the plough or ploughs. The acres 

 of the farm were divided into infield and outfield, the former 

 tilled year after year with the assistance of manure, the latter 

 ploughed, part by part, for some five years and then allowed to 

 revert to grass for at least as long a period. The arable was 

 di\'ided into strips, long, narrow, and sometimes serpentine. The 

 strips of a tenant were not contiguous, but were separated one 

 from another by the strips of other tenants, an arrangement 

 known as runrig. Sometimes the allotment of strips did not take 

 place until the ground was ready for the seed, and in such cases 

 a tenant was not likely to receive the same strips in successive 

 years. 



Nearly everything except the intermixture of the strips of the 

 several tenants was different from the English two- and three- 

 field system with which we have become familiar. The size of 

 the farm as compared with that of the Enghsh township, the 

 number of tenants, the infield and the outfield, the method of 

 tillage, the annual re-allotment of strips — all differed. Slater, 

 in getting at the distinctive feature of runrig in contrast with the 

 EngUsh open common field, concluded that it resided in the last 

 of these characteristics — in the annual re-allotment of strips. 

 The persistence of such a custom, furthermore, seems to him to 

 have facilitated enclosure, since the tenants, when they finally 

 dissolved their plough-partnership, must have tended to allot their 

 lands with regard to convenience, and must have assigned to each 

 of their number, not several scattered strips, but one parcel or at 

 least few parcels. No resort to act of parliament or to the creation 

 of a commission would thus be necessary to effect enclosure.^ 



^ English Peasantry, pp. 174-175. 



