I 



237] ^^^ DISINTEGRATION OF THE OPEN FIELDS gl 



ground from tillage simply because it was so unproductive 

 that they could not coimt on a bare return of seed if they 

 planted it. The pasturage for an additional horse or cow 

 which these plots furnished was pure gain, and was not the 

 object of the conversion to grass. The unproductive strips 

 would have been left untilled even though no alternative 

 use had been possible. They were unfit for cultivation. 



The advantage of holding this lea land did not end, how- 

 ever, with the fact that a few additional horses or cowsj 

 could be kept on the grass which sprang up. This was un- 

 doubtedly of some value, but the greatest advantage lay in 

 the fact that this land gradually recovered its strength. 

 When the strips which were kept under cultivation finally 

 produced in their turn so little that they had to be abandoned, 

 the tenant who had access to land which had been laid to 

 grass years before could plow this instead, for it had re- 

 gained its fertility and had improved in physical quality. 

 Fitzherbert recommends a regular interchange between 

 " Reyst " ground and arable land which had become ex- 

 hausted. When the grass strips become mossy and make 

 poor pasture, plow them up and plant them; when arable! 

 strips fail to produce good crops, lay them to grass. Lea 

 ground, " the whiche hath ben errable land of late " should 

 be plowed up. 



And if a man haue plentie of suche pasture, that wil be 

 mossie euery thyrd yere, lette hym breake vp a newe piece of 

 gronde, and plowe it and sowe it (as I haue seyde before), and 

 he shal haue plentye of corne, with littell dongynge, and sow it 

 no lengar thu it will beare plentye of come, without donge, and 

 it will beare much better grasse, x or xii yere after. . . . Reyst 

 grounde if it be dry, will bringe much corne, for the mosse will 

 rotte, and the moll hillockes will amende the ground wel.^ 



* Fitzherbert, Surveyinge, chs. 27 and 28. 



