172 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



cultivated on the hill farms, save in such small 

 quantities as are required to produce reed for thatch- 

 ing. Here, again, the Pleas of the Forest help us, for 

 we find set out the crops grown surreptitiously on 

 land in the bounds of the forest ; from these we 

 gather that they had a sort of three-course system, 

 sowing once with rye and twice with beans. Rye 

 was largely cultivated till modern times, and the 

 lowest layer of thatch on many an old cottage is rye 

 straw to this day. As to the nature of the stock 

 kept we have nothing to guide us ; but farmers then, 

 as now, no doubt kept that class of stock which they 

 found most suitable to the land and the climate, and 

 therefore we may fairly assume that the ancestors of 

 the Red Devons of to-day cropped the good grass 

 in the valleys, and that the hills were stocked with 

 the same class of small, quick-moving, picturesque 

 sheep which to-day make Exmoor mutton famous all 

 over England. 



For the protection of these crops, and for the 

 safety of the live stock, a certain amount of 

 enclosure must have existed, and this brings us to 

 the consideration of a very difficult problem as to the 

 nature and extent of this enclosure. The question is 

 made more difficult by two things : First, the con- 

 stantly repeated assertion that up to recent times 

 there were no enclosures at all between Dulverton 

 and Porlock ; and, secondly, the fact that there have 

 been two, if not three, distinct areas of enclosure. 



No one can have ridden over the broad commons 



