150 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 







Neither the reclamation of wastes, nor the break-up of open- 

 / field farms, nor the appropriation of commons, were novelties. For 

 X the last three centuries the three processes, which are generally 

 \ spoken of as enclosures, had all been proceeding at varying rates of 

 progress. But in the period from 1760 to 1815 each received an 

 immense impetus, partly from the rise in the price of corn, partly 

 from the consequent increase in rental values, partly from the 

 pressure of a growing population, partly from the improved standard 

 of agriculture. The literary struggle in advocacy or condemnation 

 of enclosures still continued. But the advocates were gaining the 

 upper hand. In the first half of the eighteenth century, there are 

 at least two notable contributions to the literature of the subject 

 by champions of enclosures, and only one of any importance by an 

 opponent. 



By the new writers, the unprofitable nature of the use of land 

 under common tillage or common pasture is insisted upon. Thus 

 Timothy Nourse, Gent., hi his Campania Foelix ; or Discourse of 

 the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry (1700), vigorously attacks 

 commons as " Seminaries of a lazy Thieving sort of People." In his 

 opinion their live-stock were as unprofitable to the community as 

 the commoners themselves. Their sheep are described as " poor, 

 tatter 'd, and poyson'd with the Rot," their cattle " as starv'd, Tod- 

 bellied Runts, neither fit for the Dairy nor the Yoke." So, also, 

 an anonymous author in a short and pithy tract, An Old Almanack 

 (with some considerations for improving commons] printed in 1710. 

 With a Postscript (1734-5), suggests that, if the landowner and two- 

 thirds, in number. and value, of those interested in an open-field 

 farm and common agreed to an enclosure, their consent should 

 override the opposition of the minority. " Will the Commoners 

 complain'' he asks, " for want of their Commonage ? This they can't 

 do, for few of them have any Cattle, and whether they have or not, 

 there is Recompence out of the Inclosures will more than treble 

 their Loss ? W ill the Incumbents complain ? What ! for converting 

 the dry Commons into Corn, and the Fenns into Hemp and Flax. 

 Will the Ingrossers of Commons complain, who eat up their own Share 

 and others too ? This they dare not. But won't those honest Men 

 complain who now live upon the Thefts of Common ? And not with the 

 least Reason, but then there will be Work for them." But the two 

 / important advocates of enclosures were the brothers John and 

 / Edward Laurence. In A New System of Agriculture (1726) a note 



