CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 2/1 



more, that the custom fell into disuse much earlier in the English 

 counties than in Scotland. We should, perhaps, think of the 

 two regions as practicing the same system at first but develop- 

 ing it differently. A Scottish township continued to treat its 

 outfield in the primitive manner, but also set aside a small 

 infield, which by the use of manure was kept under continuous 

 tillage; a township of the English border counties set aside 

 no infield, but tilled in a uniform manner all land which at 

 any time came under the plough. In England, however, a 

 developing agriculture, since it did not create an infield, began, 

 we may suppose, to demand that the periods of productivity of 

 the improved furlongs be prolonged at the expense of the periods 

 of fallow. In due course as much as two-thirds of the available 

 arable may have been brought under yearly cultivation. If this 

 were achieved, it would become easy to shift the location of the 

 fallow furlongs so as to bring them together into a compact fallow 

 field. Thereby the township would practically adopt the three- 

 field system, a transformation which may at times have taken 

 place in Northumberland. If this was the case, the county is to 

 be looked upon as transitional in its field arrangements, marking 

 the passage from the Celtic to the midland system. 



Whatever may be the value of this hypothesis, it seems 

 pretty clear that the Celtic system made its influence felt in 

 one way or another throughout all the counties discussed in 

 this chapter, and in all probability throughout Monmouth, 

 Westmorland, and western Yorkshire as well. Generally speak- 

 ing, then, the counties of the northwest and southwest, none 

 of them far removed from Celtic lands, constitute that part of 

 England which came within the sphere of influence of the Celtic 

 field system. 



