tHE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM 91 



in a better and more permanent form by just instead 

 of unjust legislation. No doubt as inclosures in- 

 creased agriculture was greatly improved. More 

 capital was spent on the land ; chemical and other 

 scientific discoveries were made use of ; better 

 methods of cultivation were adopted ; cattle became 

 larger and more shapely, fleeces heavier, and gener- 

 ally the produce of the soil was largely increased. 

 In the Report of the Select Committee on Waste 

 Lands, 1795, tables are given showing how much 

 heavier beeves and sheep were when fed in inclosures 

 than when fed on the wastes. But this report, like 

 nearly all the agricultural reports of the time, was 

 drawn up by those who looked at things from the 

 point of view of the territorial party. The interests 

 of the multitude of dispossessed peasantry, and other 

 small proprietors, were not considered. No account 

 was taken of the fact that before the inclosure the 

 kine on the common, though leaner, were the peasants' 

 own, and that after the inclosure these men, deprived 

 of their own stock, became mere labourers, workinof 

 for scanty wages in byres not their own, and tending 

 other people's cattle on the lands from which they had 

 been shut out. Besides, there is reason to suppose 

 that the number of cattle and other stock was far 

 larger before inclosures took place than afterwards. 

 The high prices of grain, which meant high rents to 

 the landlord, led to an indiscriminate inclosure of land. 

 Large areas, totally unfit, were put under the plough. 

 Old turf, the growth of centuries, was broken up, and 

 later on, after the irreparable mischief was done, was 

 allowed to go back into inferior pasture.^ All this 



^ " A field of old grass is a treasure which deserves to be guarded, 

 and ought not to be wantonly broken up." — " Treatise on Agi iculuue," by 

 Robert Brown, farmer at Markle, iSii. 



