82 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [238 



Tusser's references to the practice of plowing up lea 

 ground and laying other land to grass are so incidental as 

 to be good evidence of the fact that this was not merely 

 the recommendation of a theorist, but a common practice, 

 the details of which were familiar to those for whom he 

 intended his book. A passage in which he refers to tha 

 laying to grass of land in need of rest has already been 

 quoted/ In discussing the date at which plowing should 

 take place he mentions the plowing up of lea land as well 

 as of fallow.^ 



The superior value of enclosed pasture to open-field leas, 

 and of enclosed arable to open-field arable, is not only as- 

 serted by Fitzherbert and others who are urging husband- 

 men to enclose their land, but appears also when manorial 

 surveys are examined. It would seem, therefore, that the 

 tenants would have been anxious to carry the process to an 

 end and enclose their land. Undoubtedly the larger hold- 

 ers were desirous of making the change, but as long as the 

 rights of the lesser men were respected, it was almost im- 

 possible to carry it out. The adjustment of conflicting and 

 obscure claims was generally held to be an insuperable ob- 

 stacle, even by those who urged the change most strongly, 

 while those who on principle opposed anything in the way 

 of enclosure took comfort in the fact that holdings were 

 so intermixed that there was little prospect of accomplishing 

 the change : 



Wheare (men) are intercominers in comon feildes and also haue 

 theare portions so intermingled with an other that, thoughe 

 they would, they could not inclose anie parte of the saide f eldes 

 so long as it is so.^ 



^ See p. 79. Another reference to this process is made in October's 

 Husbandry, vol. 22, ch. 17. 



2 Tusser, January's Husbandry, vol. 47, ch. 32. 



• A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England, ed. by 

 Elizabeth Lamond, Cambridge, 1893, 



I 



