ENCLOSURE 253 



from two to six years before the final award was given, that 

 many farmers were thrown out in the management of their 

 farms, for they did not know where their future lands would 

 be allotted. That the poor suffered greatly is indubitable : 

 'By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of twenty the poor are 

 injured, in some cases grossly injured,' wrote Young in iSoi. 1 

 In the Acts it was endeavoured to treat them fairly, 2 and 

 allotments were made to them, or money paid on enclosure 

 in lieu of their rights of common, or small plots of land ; but 

 the expense of enclosing small allotments was proportionately 

 very great, generally too great, and they had to be sold, while 

 the sums of money were often spent in the alehouse. The 

 results of sixty-eight Acts were investigated in the eastern 

 counties, with the result that in all but fifteen the poor were 

 injured. It was generally found that they had lost their 

 cows. 



Its effect on the small holder is well described by Davis 

 in his Report on Wilts? There, before enclosure, the tenants 

 usually occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres 

 of meadow, 1 8 acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty 

 strips, with a right on the common meadows, common fields 

 and downs for 40 sheep, and as many cattle as the tenant 

 could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40 sheep were 

 kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were 

 taken every day to the downs and brought back every night 

 to be folded on the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 

 sheep on a ' tenantry ' acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) 

 every night. 4 In breeding sheep regard was had to ' folding 



1 Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the better Support 

 of the Poor, p. 42. 



2 The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land should be 

 ' allotted according to the several and respective rights of all who had 

 rights and interests ' in the enclosed property, and expenses were to be 

 borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of the people interested'. 



s pp. 8 et seq. Slater, op. cit. p. 113. 



4 Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in Hampshire 

 at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land in the 



