CHAPTER X 



Results and Conjectures 



In an introductory chapter it was suggested that a study of field 

 systems might throw hght upon the history of English agricul- 

 ture; it was intimated, too, that a discrimination between regions 

 characterized by different field arrangements might be of im- 

 portance for the history of EngUsh settlement. The time has 

 come to inquire whether these predictions have been fulfilled. 



The preceding chapters have, it is hoped, estabhshed certain 

 general conclusions. The current view that the two- and three- 

 field system was prevalent throughout England has been rejected, 

 and it has been shown that this system was restricted to a large 

 irregular area lying chiefly in the midlands. This central area 

 reached northward as far as Durham and southward to the Chan- 

 nel; it extended from Cambridgeshire on the east to the Welsh 

 border on the west.^ In the counties farther toward the south- 

 east, the southwest, and the northwest different field systems 

 have been discovered. Whatever the dissimilarity between these, 

 they have shown agreement in not dividing the unenclosed arable 

 of their village fields into two or three parts to each of which 

 one-half or one-third of every tenant's parcels were assigned. 



A marking-off of central England as the precinct of the two- 

 and three-field system is significant for the history of agriculture. 

 The development of this art has depended primarily upon the 

 extent to which and the manner in which the soil has been utilized 

 for the multiplication of agricultural products. At one end of the 

 line of development stands the unenclosed open waste, parts of 

 it transiently improved for purposes of tillage, as in the Scottish 

 outfields; ^ at the other end stands the modern enclosed farm, 

 its acres cultivated in accordance with the principles of con- 

 vertible husbandry. Between these termini lie two well-marked 



^ Cf. map facing the title-page. ^ Cf. above, pp. 158 sq. 



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