The Making of the Land. 209 



to such improvements as the gradual enclosure of wastes, the 

 consolidation of farms, the substitution of corn husbandry for 

 sheep farming, and a preponderance of good harvests. To- 

 wards the close of the century the high prices of all neces- 

 saries and the low rates of wages (both attributable to the 

 rapid increase in population) brought the condition of the 

 husbandman to the acme of prosperity, but combined to 

 reduce his labourers to the extreme verge of want. 



The first of these two periods records the struggle between 

 the open field system and green crop cultivation, the latter the 

 triumph of scientific farming. In 1764, out of 8,500 parishes 

 in England, more than half were still unenclosed. At the be- 

 ginning of the reign of George III. the total number of enclo- 

 sure Acts amounted to 244, while by the end of it we find 

 nearly 4,000, and throughout its duration more than a million 

 and a quarter acres were redeemed from the waste. The old 

 communal system of agriculture was quite unfitted for scien- 

 tific farming. The parish plough- ground, unenclosed as it 

 actually continued to be, was, metaphorically speaking, suffi- 

 ciently fenced off from all connection with the agricultural 

 chemist. As long as several scattered strips represented each 

 individual's holding, any general system of drainage was im- 

 possible ; and while the livestock of the community could be 

 turned on to the stubbles in August, turnip culture was im- 

 practicable. Without some intricate arrangement of coaration, 

 no individual farmer could, without barefallowing, keep his 

 land clear of weeds. Cross cultivation was out of the question, 

 perpetual grain and pulse crops prevented that repeated spring 

 harrowing which the later sown turnips and potatoes afforded, 

 and the scientific breeding of livestock was, as we have shown 

 in the last chapter, too risky an undertaking to be attractive. 



It would seem from these facts that a general practice 

 of enclosing would have set in far earlier than it really did. 

 But as yet the only alternative husbandry was that on one of 

 the few small holdings which continued legislation had suc- 

 ceeded in creating. Those who had accumulated a little capital 

 no doubt competed at ruination rents for such-like tenancies^ 

 and if successful, toiled night and morning, as only small 



n. p 



