14 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



Apparently, however, sheep did not take this lowering 

 in the social scale very much to heart, for in 1488 a very 

 serious state of affairs is recorded. 



" Where in some towns," says the Statute 4th 

 Henry VH, " two hundred persons lived and were 

 occupied with their lawful labours, now there are 

 occupied two or three herdsmen and the residue fall 

 into idleness." 



Therefore it was enacted that farms with 20 acres 

 under tillage must be upheld, under a penalty of half 

 the profits to be forfeited to the King. 



This failed to improve the situation and in 1534 a 

 new Act was tried, " Sheep being come in to a few 

 persons' hands." Single persons owned flocks of sheep 

 ranging in number from four thousand up to even 

 twenty-four thousand. A monopoly in wool existed, and 

 the price thereof in consequence had risen greatly. 

 Therefore a penalty was imposed upon everyone who kept 

 over two thousand sheep, and no person was to take more 

 than two tenantries of husbandry. 



GRASS versus arable 



When Elizabeth came to the throne the case of sheep 

 versus cattle had more or less settled itself, and we find 

 a new basis to the legislation. The aim was to secure a 

 larger area of plough land and to reduce the area under 

 grass ; and one of the most drastic measures ever passed 

 was that of the 39th Elizabeth (1597) enacting that all 

 land made pasture since the ist Elizabeth shall again be 

 converted to tillage, and that no existing arable shall be 

 converted into pasture. 



In view of the measures taken by the Government 

 during the Great War to induce British farmers to keep 



