196 



READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



as affecting the poor and as resulting in depopulation, but in 

 the latter does not clearly discriminate between owning occupiers 

 and other classes of the rural population. Yet his introduction 

 characterizes the enclosure policy of the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries as one directed toward "the uprooting of peasant pro- 

 prietors." Johnson cautiously concludes that " directly and indi- 

 rectly enclosures tended to divorce thejjoor man from the soil," 

 yet the larger yeoman was benefited, and, in general, "enclosure 

 should be looked upon as a necessary preliminary rather than the 

 true cause of consolidation," Rae and Taylor, discovering no 

 marked decline in yeoman farming until after 181 5, attribute the 

 nineteenth-century decadence to causes other than enclosure. 



In view of these diverse opinions it may be advisable to recon- 

 sider our Oxfordshire parishes in the light of their enclosure his- 

 tory. And the preceding order of inquiry may be retained. What 

 was the effect of enclosure between 1785 and 1832, the years for 

 which our data are most complete ? And what may be inferred to 

 have been its effect before 1785 ? 



Between 1785 and 1832 forty-nine townships of the county were 

 enclosed, with results which may be seen in the following schedule : 



Taken together, these townships seem to have had the same 

 experience as the county at large. The amount of land occupied 

 by the owners increases steadily during the entire period. The 

 number of occupying owners increases until 1804, but declines 

 somewhat before 1832. Turning from the totals to the figures for 



