RESULTS AND CONJECTURES 405 



by the custom of subdividing land among heirs, some intermix- 

 ture of the parcels of tenants' holdings naturally appeared wher- 

 ever either system was practiced. But the Celtic system did not 

 necessarily imply an extensive development of runrig, especially 

 if the region were a pastoral one ; and the Kentish system did not 

 render immobile the intermixture of tenants' strips. It was 

 possible under both systems for holdings to retain a certain degree 

 of compactness, a fact which naturally facilitated enclosure. At 

 any rate, no close connection between a three-course rotation of 

 crops and three large fields ever arose. Often, too, there were 

 in the counties in question tracts of woodland or waste, moor or 

 down, so large that it was possible to set little store upon the use 

 of the fallow arable for pasture, a feature which the midland sys- 

 tem always emphasized. If it did seem desirable thus to utilize 

 the fallow arable, as happened in Norfolk, wattles were employed. 

 Freed in one way or another from the pasturage needs of the mid- 

 lands, and disposed with none of the symmetrical arrangement 

 there prevalent, the open-field arable acres of the non-midland 

 counties readily yielded to enclosure at an early time. Such is 

 the first and not the least noteworthy effect which field systems 

 have had upon the agricultural development of England. 



The midland system, on the contrary, exerted upon this devel- 

 opment an influence which was to some extent inhibitive. It 

 delayed enclosure. The correspondence between its precinct 

 on the one hand and the regions of the persistent open field of the 

 parliamentary awards on the other, shows in a general way that 

 it was peculiarly favorable to the preservation of unenclosed 

 arable, that it served, indeed, as a protective shell. In order to 

 view this relationship more closely we have given somewhat care- 

 ful attention to the later enclosure history of Oxfordshire. In 

 consequence it has become apparent that those townships which 

 longest remained open were the ones which clung most tenaciously 

 to the old system. If this was the case in the eighteenth century, 

 when incentives to abandon the traditional tillage were strong- 

 est, the protection afforded by the system was probably even 

 more effective during earlier centuries, when there was less 

 thought of change. The persistent open field of the midlands, 



