RESULTS AND CONJECTURES 407 



cultural progress, had been brought to pass, if not so promptly 

 as in many non-midland counties, at least earlier than in the east- 

 ern midlands. For this progress the county seems to have been 

 indebted to certain irregularities in its field arrangements, some 

 of which were already apparent in Jacobean times. These irreg- 

 ularities were in turn due to divers causes. The situation of 

 townships within fertile river valleys, which throughout midland 

 England often proved itself an influence conducive to the appear- 

 ance of irregular fields, was characteristic of a large part of Here- 

 fordshire. Another general influence, the location of townships 

 within a forested area settled and improved relatively late, was 

 not without effect in the county. Along with these wide-reaching 

 causes of irregularities in field systems, irregularities which in 

 turn were conducive to enclosure, went a special circumstance, 

 probably operative in other counties of the western midlands as 

 well as in Herefordshire. This was the small size of township 

 fields. In a region characterized by hamlet settlements, as some 

 of these western counties were, the improved arable was not great 

 in amount and the tenants were not numerous. Departures from 

 a regular system were easier to make than where fields were large 

 and tenants many; and our evidence goes to show that they were 

 frequently made. The outcome of this and of the other influences 

 mentioned was often a multipHcity of small fields. Jacobean 

 surveys and enclosure awards have served to illustrate these 

 fields and have shown how they facilitated piecemeal enclosure. 

 For piecemeal enclosure was the form of agricultural develop- 

 ment naturally adopted by districts circumstanced Hke Here- 

 fordshire. 



The course of events differed in Oxfordshire, a county which, 

 because of its situation in the more eastern midlands, serves to 

 exemplify the agricultural progress of that region. The first and 

 dominant fact disclosed by our inquiries is that large tracts of open 

 arable common field persisted in the county until the second half 

 of the eighteenth century. Some thirty-seven per cent of its area 

 then remained in this state and had to be enclosed by act of par- 

 liament. One should not infer from this that a certain amount of 

 open arable field had failed to escape enclosure between the Middle 



