J 



78 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [234 



tain openrfield holdings of about 1 590. Here consolidation 

 of plots had proceeded noticeably. There are several plots 

 of considerable size held by a single tenant. 



The advantage of consolidated holdings are considerable. 

 Ini the first place, the turf boundaries between the strips) 

 could be plowed up, or the direction of the plowing itself 

 could be changed, if enough strips were thrown together. 

 Fitzherbert advises the farmer who has a number of strips 

 lying side by side and who- 



hath no dung nor shepe to compost nor dung his land withall. 

 Then let the husband take his ploughe, and cast al such landes 

 three or four tymes togider, and make theyr rigge theyr as ye 

 raine was before. . . . And so shel he finde new moulde, that 

 was not sene in an hundred yeres before, the which must nedes 

 gyue more come than the other dydde before.^ 



In two Elizabethan surveys examined by Corbett, we have 

 evidence that the theoretical advantages urged by Fitz- 

 herbert were not unknown in practice. It is now and then 

 stated that the metae between strips have been plowed up. 

 But sometimes, even though all of the strips in a furlong had' 

 been acquired by the same owner, and enclosed, the land 

 was left in strips. Some of the pieces were freehold, others 

 copyhold, and the lord may have objected to having thd 

 boundaries obliterated.^ Cross plowing is also occasionally 

 referred to in these surveys, but it was apparently rare.* 



The possibility of improvement in this direction, although 

 not be ignored, was, however, comparatively slight. The 

 important changes which resulted from the increased size 

 of the holdings were not so much in the direction of superior 

 management of the land, as in that of making a selection 



'^Surveying (2nd ed., 1567), ch. 24. 



2 Corbett, "Elizabethan Village Surveys," Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., 

 New Series, vol. ii, pp. 67-^";. 



