166 JETHRO TULL AND LORD TOWNSHEND 



creasing facilities of communication enabled farmers to put their 

 land to the best use by relieving them from the old uniform 

 necessity of growing corn for the locality. 



Elsewhere, the early or late enclosure of land was in the main 

 determined by such agricultural reasons as climate or soil. En- 

 closure took place first, where it paid best agriculturally. In 

 the moister climate of the South-west and West the rigid separa- 

 tion of arable from pasture was unnecessary. In some parts of 

 the country the suitability of the land for hops or fruit necessitated 

 early enclosure. Blith's reference to the plantation of the hedge- 

 rows with fruit-trees in " Worcestershire, Hereford, and Gloster shire 

 and great part of the county of Kent " points to separate occupation 

 in the first half of the seventeenth century. 1 In other parts, if 

 corn-land was more adapted to pasture, it was, under the new con- 

 ditions, enclosed and laid down to grass. It was thus that the 

 grazing districts on the water-bearing pasture belt of the Midlands, 

 or the dairying districts of Gloucestershire or Wiltshire came into 

 separate occupation. So also, where the soil was of a quality to 

 respond quickly to turnips, clover, and artificial grasses, it was 

 enclosed in order that it might profit by the new discoveries. This 

 was the case on the light soils of Norfolk, where, as Houghton noted, 

 turnip husbandry had been introduced with success before the 

 close of the seventeenth century. This early use of roots is con- 

 firmed by Defoe, 2 who says of Norfolk ; " This part of England is 

 remarkable for being the first where the Feeding and Fattening of 

 Cattle, both Sheep as well as black Cattle, with Turnips, was first 

 practis'd in England." 



Where land did not appear to be so immediately susceptible to 

 the influence of these improvements, which were still imperfectly 

 understood, the question of enclosure, and of the use to which the 

 land was put, became mainly one of expense. Only the best and 

 strongest land was able to endure the open-field system without 

 exhaustion. To separate occupiers, eighteenth century improve- 

 ments offered new means of restoring the fertility of exhausted soil. 

 At the same time the revolution in stock-breeding held out new 

 temptations to graziers. Much worn-out arable land of indifferent 

 -or medium quality was enclosed because its produce was declining. 



1 English Improver, chap. xix. 



1 A Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain (2nd edition, 1738), vol. i. 

 pp. 60-61. Defoe began his tour in 1722. 



