92 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [248 



farmer who is unable to meet expenses in a particular year 

 because of an exceptionally bad season, and one who is 

 suffering because of progressive deterioration of his farm. 

 The first may borrow and make good the difference the fol- 

 lowing year; the latter will be unable to extricate himself. 

 He neither has means to increase his holding by renting or 

 buying more land, nor to improve the land which he has 

 already. His distress is cumulative : 



Only one with sufficient resources can improve his land. By 

 improving land we add to our capital, while by robbing land 

 we immediately add to our income ; in doing so, however, we 

 diminish out of all proportion our capital as farmers, the pro- 

 ductive value of our farm land. The individual farmer can 

 therefore improve his land only when in an economically strong 

 position. A farmer who is failing to make a living on his 

 farm is more likely to exploit his farm to the utmost; and 

 when there is no room for further exploitation he is likely to 

 meet the deficit by borrowing, and thus pledging the future 

 productivity of his farm.^ 



While small holders in the open fields were in no position 

 to pay higher rents, the land owners were suffering. Prices 

 were rising, and while the higher price of farm produce in 

 the market was of little help to the tenant whose own family 

 used nearly everything he could raise, the landlords felt the 

 pressure of an increasing cost of living. 



Many of us [says the Gentleman, in Hales' dialogue] haue 

 bene driuen to giue over oure houshold, and to kepe either a 

 chambere in london, or to waight on the courte Vncalled, with 

 a man and a lacky after him, wheare he was wonte to kepe half e 

 a score cleane men in his house, and xxtie or xxxtie other 

 persons besides, everie day in the weke. . . . We are forced 



1 " Rome's Fall Reconsidered," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxxi, 

 pp. 217, 220. 



