DRAWBACKS TO OPEN-FIELD FARMING 65 



to 1485, that is, from the Black Death to the Battle of Bosworth, 

 its yield had declined ; its farming had deteriorated. Fitzherbert, 

 writing in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, notes that 

 useful agricultural practices had in many parts become obsolete, 

 that crops were smaller, and methods of husbandry more slovenly. 

 The fall in rentals had been general. But it was on demesne lands, 

 or on enclosed farms, that the fall in rents had been least. These 

 were the lands which were in the best condition, because on them 

 most manure had been expended. Open-field farmers commanded 

 little or no manure for their arable land, and were practically 

 dependent on sheep for fertilising the soil. Yet in winter, 

 animals, reduced to the lowest possible number, barely sur- 

 vived on straw and tree-loppings. The miserable condition of 

 live-stock on open-field farms and commons exposed the sheep to 

 the scab and the rot, and the cattle to the murrain. It was no 

 uncommon spectacle to see the head of an ox impaled on a stake 

 by the highway, as a warning that the township was infected. 



Agriculturists might with good reason plead that the changes 

 which they advocated were justified, if not necessitated, by the 

 progress of farming. They hoped that even open-field farmers 

 might themselves recognise the advantages of enclosure, and would 

 agree to consolidate their intermixed holdings and extinguish their 

 reciprocal rights of common. Fijtzherbert in his Book of Husbandry 

 argues strongly in favour of enclosures, and especially insists on 

 their advantages in keeping live-stock, which, he says, thrive best 

 and cost least on enclosed land. If a farmer has only a twenty 

 years' lease of his land, it will pay him to go to the expense of 

 fencing off his land in separate parcels with hedges and ditches. 

 Common-field farmers have to pay 2d. a quarter for each head of 

 cattle, and Id. a quarter for each head of swine, under the care of 

 the common herdsman and swineherd. If they wish to thrive, 

 each must keep a shepherd of his own. The hire of the herdsman 

 and the swineherd, together with the wages and board of the 

 shepherd, and the cost of hurdles and stakes put together, double 

 the rent. If a farmer encloses, he may have to pay three times 

 this annual cost in one year ; but he has no further expense. 

 " Than hathe he euery fyelde hi seueraltie : and by the assente 

 of the lordes and the tenauntes euery neyghbour may exchaunge 

 landes with other. And than shall his farme be twyse so good in 

 proffite to the tenaunte as it was before, and as muche lande kepte 



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