64 FARMING FOR PROFIT 



It was easy for popular preachers and pamphleteers to excite 

 popular passion against the " greedy gulls " and " insatiable 

 cormorants," who advocated and practised enclosures, and to 

 denounce the agricultural tendencies of Tudor times as solely 

 guided by selfish greed. But there are practical and broader sides 

 to the question. When once land was regarded as an important 

 asset in the wealth of the nation, national interests demanded that 

 it should be utilised to the greatest possible advantage. Without 

 enclosures, the soil could not be used for the purposes to which it 

 was best adapted, or its resources fully developed. If money was 

 to be made out of land, or if its full productive power was to be 

 realised, it was individual enterprise alone that could make or 

 realise either. Under the open-field system one man's idleness 

 might cripple the industry of twenty : only on enclosed farms, 

 separately occupied, could men secure the full fruit of their enter- 

 prise. This fact had slowly revealed itself during the last two 

 centuries. To exchange intermixed lands, to consolidate compact 

 holdings, and fence them off in separate occupation, had long been 

 the aim both of landlords and tenant-farmers. Few practical 

 men would have disputed the truth of Fuller's statement : " The 

 poor man who is monarch of but one enclosed acre will receive 

 more profit from it than from his share of many acres in common 

 with others." 



Tudor agriculturists went further in their zeal for farming pro- 

 gress. They saw that a small enclosed plot of 15 acres could be 

 used with less advantage than a large enclosure of 150 acres which 

 enabled the tenant to invest money in the land, carry more stock, 

 provide his cattle with more winter food, and, if the climate per- 

 mitted, adopt convertible husbandry. This was recognised both 

 by landowners and farmers of the progressive school, and the 



' increased size even of arable farms continues to be a feature in 

 sixteenth century changes. For successful sheep-farming, a large 

 stretch of land, held in individual occupation, was still more 

 essential.! From this point of view the untilled common wastes 

 were unprofitable. Whether land was enclosed for tillage or as sheep 



' runs, its productiveness was increased by enclosure. Finally, the 

 natural fertility of arable land on open unenclosed farms was 

 becoming exhausted. The system was one of taking much from 

 the land and putting little back. The soil, lightly ploughed, seldom 

 manured, often foul, was in some districts worn-out. From 1349 



