66 LAND REFORM 



worked it, and there is much evidence to show that 

 the same was true of many parts of England. But 

 in Bramshot the displacement began long before."^ 



The practice of consolidation was the subject of 

 a large amount of discusssion and of protest during 

 the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first 

 half of the nineteenth. One writer states : — 



*' It is no uncommon thing for four or five wealthy 

 graziers to engross a large enclosed lordship, which 

 v/as before in the hands of twenty or thirty farmers 

 and as many tenants as proprietors. All these are 

 hereby thrown out of their livings, with their families, 

 and many other families who were chiefly employed 

 and supported by them." Again : " In several 

 parishes in Hertfordshire twenty-four farms, number- 

 ing on the average from 50 to 150 acres, have been 

 melted up into three farms." 



The same practices are reported in almost every 

 county. A writer as early as 1778 states : — 



" Much has been written for and against the utility 

 of great farms ; but the argument against them drawn 

 from the consequent depopulation of the country, 

 seems strongly enforced by an instance in this neigh- 

 bourhood. At Chadsunt was a mansion house, the 

 seat of Mr. Newsome, and ten farmhouses on so 

 many farms, let altogether at about ^800 per annum. 

 Not long since this estate was sold to Lord Cather- 

 lough ; the ten farmhouses are pulled down, and all 

 the lands and the mansion house are let at ;!^ 1000 per 

 ann. to one farmer who manages the business, as 

 a grazier, with the help of two or three servants."'' 



^ "Scenes of Rural Life in Hampshire among ihe Manors of Bram 

 shot," by W. W. Capes, Rector of Bramshot. Macmillan, 1901. 

 " "A Tour in Warwickbhirc, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire," 1778. 



