3o8 History of the English Landed Interest, 



tlie winter shed could flourish better under the shelter of the 

 new hedges, and even the cottager would be better off with a 

 tiny enclosure than when his thin beast was cropping a pre- 

 carious livelihood horn with horn on the common. Then, 

 argues Fitzherbert, see how the separate field S3'stem would 

 facilitate cultivation ! If his corn in the arable field looked 

 bare, he could break up the leyse or pasture ground and grow 

 some there instead. Even the wood in the hedgerows would 

 be a source of profit, and there was the saving of a small 

 fortune in the board, lodging, and wages of herdsmen who 

 would be rendered unnecessary by the new process.^ Then, lest 

 he shoulfl be accused of taking the bread out of a poor man's 

 mouth, and remembering the rebellion of King Edward YI.'s 

 reign, Sir Anthony ends up with the suggestion that the now 

 useless herdsmen, whom Tusser has aptly named the " fences " 

 of the commonable land, could be put on to get, ditch, hedge 

 and plash quicksets, whereby our author somewhat invalidates 

 his previous contention that closes would save the farmer's 

 pockets in keep and wages of this class. At first sight it is 

 rather a shock to a nineteenth-century farmer's ideas to read 

 Fitzherbert's airy suggestion as to ploughing up the good turf 

 of the leyse and pasture fields. But this was the time when 

 from the reign of Henrj'- VII. to that of James I. the legislature 

 was constantly called upon to encourage tillage at the expense of 

 pasture, " Where in some towns," enacts the 4 Hen. VII. c. 10, 

 " two hundred persons were occupied and lived of their lawful 

 labours, now there are occupied two or three herdsmen, and the 

 residue fall into idleness." Under a penalty of forfeiting half 

 the profits to the lord of the fee, all who for three years had held 

 farms containing 20 acres of arable land, were made to uphold 

 them as such. On account of the enormous increase in the 

 price of wool, which seems to have been attributed to what is 

 now vulgarly termed " cornering the market," no one from 

 1533 - was allowed to keep more than 2,000 sheej), and about 



' Tusser in his rhymes on the work of July, breaks off to compare 

 the disadvantages of the '•Champion Country" witli the advantages of 

 the " Several." 



* 25Hen. VIII. c. 13. 



