200 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



recent introduction since these lands had been " converted " to 

 it.' Elsewhere in the survey there seems to be a tacit under- 

 standing that old Welsh methods of tillage prevailed. What 

 these had come to be in Pembrokeshire in 1603 Owen tells us: 

 " The part of the sheere inhabited by the Welshmen as before is 

 saied, followinge their forefathers husbandrie regard more the 

 tillage of oates then of the former graines. . . . [After folding 

 cattle upon parcels of land from March to November] this lande 

 they plowe in November and December, & in March they sowe oates 

 in yt and have comonlie a goodlie Cropp, then they followe these 

 landes with oates seaven eight or ten yeares together till the lande 

 growe so weake&baren that it will not yeald the seede: and then 

 let they that lande lie for eight or ten yeares in pasture for their 

 Cattell." 2 Such tillage is like that of the Scottish outfield, and 

 since there is no mention of continuously tilled infields we may 

 conclude that it represents primitive Celtic usage. 



This tillage of Scottish or Welsh outfields was, of course, far 

 removed from English midland methods. To take crops of oats 

 for a succession of years from land which had been prepared by a 

 preliminary dressing of manure, and then to turn the exhausted 

 fields over to fallow pasture for another succession of years, was 

 unknown in the valley of the Trent. More like midland practices 

 was the tillage of the Scottish infield. On this there was often a 

 three-course rotation of crops; but the tillage differed in that the 

 three crops were all spring grains, the cultivation was continuous, 

 and the absence of fallowing was compensated for by annual 

 manuring. Such advanced practices must have been innovations 

 in Scotland, probably not much antedating the seventeenth 

 century.^ In English counties which may in early times have had 

 a Celtic field system this particular development probably 



1 " Et sunt in dominico de terra arabili conversa in tress eisonas . . ." {Survey 

 of the Honour of Denbigh, pp. 4, 230.) 



2 Description of Penbrokshire, i. 61-62. 



' An account of " two husbandlands " at Lymouth in Berwickshire, dated 1651, 

 gives detail for the infield and the outfield separately; two other descriptions of 

 fractional husbandlands at the same place, earlier by a half-century, make no dis- 

 tinction between infield and outfield lands. Cf. Hist. MSS. Commission, MSS. of 

 Col. D. M. Home (1902), pp. 220, 212, 214. 



