98 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [254 



that land which had been under cultivation within a certain 

 number of years preceding the act should be tilled, " or so 

 much in quantity/' ^ Public men were also urging tha^t less 

 time be devoted to the futile attempt to force men to culti- 

 vate land unfit for tillage, and that encouragement be given 

 instead to measures for improving the waste, and bringing 

 fresh land under the plow.^ 



After a time, moreover, another fact became apparent: 

 there was a marked tendency to break up and again culti- 

 vate the land which in former generations had been con- 

 verted to pasture. The statute of 1597 not only contained 

 a proviso permitting the conversion of arable fields to pas- 

 ture on condition that other land be tilled instead,^ thusi 

 tacitly admitting that the reason for withdrawing land from 

 ^cultivation was not the low price of grain, but the barren- 

 ness of the land, but also explicitly referred to this fact in 

 another proviso permitting the conversion of arable land 

 to pasture temporarily, for the purpose of recovering its 

 Strength: 



Provided, nevertheless, That if anie Pson or Body Polli- 

 tique or Corporate hath . . . laide or hereafter shall lay anie 

 grownde to graze, or hathe used or shall use the same grownde 

 with shepe or anie other cattell, which Grownde hath bene or 

 shall be dryven or worne owte with Tillage, onely upon good 

 Husbandrie, and with intente bona fide withowt Fraude or 

 Covyne the same Grownde shall recover Harte and Strengthe, 

 an not with intent to continue the same otherwise in shepe 

 Pasture or for fattinge or grazinge of Cattell, that no such 

 Pson or Body Politike or Corporate shall be intended for that 

 Grownde a Converter within the meaning of this Lawe.* 



» 5 & 6 Ed. 6, c. 5. R-e-enacted by 5 EL, c. 2. 



' Memorandum addressed by Alderman Box to Lord Burleigh in 

 1576, Conner, op. cit., p. 157. 



* 39 El., ch. 2, proviso iii. 



* Ibid., proviso iv. ^ 



