254 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



quality,' i.e. the propensity to drop manure only after being 

 folded at night, as much as to quality and quantity of wool 

 and meat. On enclosure the common flock was broken up. 

 The small farmer had no longer any common to turn his 

 horses on. The down on which he fed his sheep was largely 

 curtailed, the common shepherd was abolished, and the farmer 

 had too few sheep to enable him individually to employ 

 a shepherd. Therefore he had to part with his flock. Having 

 no cow common and very little pasture land he could not 

 keep cows. In such circumstances the small farmer, after 

 a few years, succumbed and became a labourer, or emigrated, 

 or went to the towns. 



In a pamphlet called The Case of Labourers in Husbandry ', 

 1 795, the Rev. David Davies said, ' by enclosure an amaz- 

 ing number of people have been reduced from a com- 

 fortable state of partial independence to the precarious 

 condition of mere hirelings, who when out of work imme- 

 diately come on the parish.' It has often been said that the, 

 poor were robbed of their share in the land by the land- 

 owners ; but as a matter of fact it was the expense of securing 

 the compensation allowed them, much greater in proportion 

 on small holdings than on large, which went into the pockets 

 of surveyors and lawyers, that did this. It was also often 

 through the farmer that the labourer was deprived of his land 

 when he had retained an acre or two after enclosure. Wishing 

 to make the labourer dependent on him, he persuaded the 

 agent to let the cottages with the farm, and the agent in 1 

 order to avoid collecting a number of small rents consented. 

 As soon as the farmer had the cottages he took the land 



common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep in propor- 

 tion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who fed them and 

 folded them on all parts of the township. A similar practice was observed 

 with the common herd of cows, which were placed under one cowherd who 

 tended them by day and brought them back at night to be milked, dis- 

 tributing them among their respective owners, and in the morning they 

 were collected by the sound of the horn. Rural Economy of Southern 

 Counties, ii. 351. 



