189] THE PRICE OF WOOL 33 



the cessation of the enclosure movement. Ashley, for in- 

 stance, suggests that land-owners found that to *' devote 

 their lands continuously to sheep-breeding did not turn out 

 quite so profitable as was at first expected." ^ Others refer 

 to the contemporary complaints of the bad effect of enclosure 

 upon the quality of wool. The breed of sheep which could 

 be kept in enclosed pastures was said to produce coarser wool _/ 

 than those grazing on the hilly pastures, and this deteriora- 

 tion in the quality of wool so cut down the profits from en- 

 closures that men now preferred to plow them up again, and 

 resume tillage. The extent to which the plowing up of 

 pasture can be attributed to this cause must be very slight, 

 however, as even contemporaries disagreed as to the exist- 

 ence of any deterioration in the quality of the wool. Some 

 authorities even state that the quality was improved by the 

 use of enclosed pasture : when Cornwall, 



through want of good manurance lay waste and open, the sheep 

 had generally little bodies and coarse fleeces, so as their wool 

 bare no better name than Cornish hair . . . but since the 

 grounds began to receive enclosure and dressing for tillage, the 

 nature of the soil hath altered to a better grain and yieldeth 

 nourishment in greater abundance to the beasts that pasture 

 thereupon; so as, by this means . . . Cornish sheep come but 

 little behind the eastern flocks for bigness of mould, fineness of 

 wool, etc.^ 



The plowing up of pasture land for tillage cannot, then, be 

 explained by the effect of enclosure upon the quality of wool. 

 It has been ordinarily taken as an indication that the price of 

 grain was now rising more rapidly than that of wool, partly 

 because a relaxation of the corn-laws permitted greater f ree- 



^ English Economic History (New York, 1893), part ii, p. 262. 

 2Carew, Survey of Cornwall (London, 1814), p. 77. 



