4 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



which one was cultivated and the other left fallow ; and this 

 was followed by the three-field system, by which two were 

 cropped in any one year and one lay fallow, the last-named 

 becoming general as it yielded better results, though the 

 former continued, especially in the North. Under the three- 

 field plan the husbandman early in the autumn would plough 

 the field that had been lying fallow during summer, and sow 

 wheat or rye; in the spring he broke up the stubble of the 

 field on which the last wheat crop had been grown and sowed 

 barley or oats ; in June he ploughed up the stubble of the 

 last spring crop and fallowed the field. 1 As soon as the 

 crops began to grow in the arable fields and the grass in 

 the meadows to spring, they were carefully fenced to prevent 

 trespass of man and beast ; and, as soon as the crops came off, 

 the fields became common for all the village to turn their 

 stock upon, the arable fields being usually common from 

 Lammas (August i) to Candlemas (February 2) and the 

 meadows from July 6, old Midsummer Day, to Candlemas 2 ; 

 but as in this climate the season both of hay and corn 

 harvest varies considerably, these dates cannot have been 

 fixed. 



The stock, therefore, besides the common pasture, had after 

 harvest the grazing of the common arable fields and of the 

 meadows. The common pasture was early ' stinted ' or 

 limited, the usual custom being that the villager could turn 

 out as many stock as he could keep on his holding. The 

 trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every year 

 must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this 

 important matter at an early date. About 700 the laws of 



1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 74. 

 Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the three-field, 

 both in early and mediaeval times. Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 366. 



8 Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 5. To-day 

 harvest generally commences about August I, so that this, like the 

 growth of grapes in mediaeval times, seems to show our climate has 

 grown colder. 



