228 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 



2. In the West Midland and South-Western District, Shropshire 

 (1794) l " does not contain much common field lands, most of these 

 having been formerly enclosed, and before acts of parliament for 

 that purpose were in use ; but the inconvenience of the property 

 being detached and intermixed in small parcels, is severely felt, 

 as is also the inconvenience of having the farm buildings in villages." 

 There still remained large commons of which the largest were Clun 

 Forest and Morfe Common, near Bridgnorth. The Reporter 

 strongly advocates their enclosure. " The idea of leaving them in 

 their unimproved state, to bear chiefly gorse bushes, and fern, is 

 now completely scouted, except by a very few, who have falsely 

 conceived that the inclosing of them is an injury to the poor ; but 

 if those persons had seen as much of the contrary effects in that 

 respect as I have, I am fully persuaded their opposition would 

 at once cease. Let those who doubt, go round the commons now 

 open, and view the miserable huts, and poor, ill-cultivated, im- 

 poverished spots erected, or rather thrown together, and inclosed by 

 themselves, for which they pay 6d. or Is. per year, which, by loss 

 of time both to the man and his family, affords them a very- 

 trifle towards then* maintenance, yet operates upon their minds 

 as a sort of independence ; this idea leads the man to lose many 

 days work by which he gets a habit of indolence ; a daughter kept 

 at home to milk a poor half-starved cow, who being open to tempta- 

 tions, soon turns harlot, and becomes a distressed, ignorant mother, 

 instead of making a good useful servant." 



Herefordshire 2 (1794) contained a great number of open-field 

 farms, occupying some of " the best land of the county," and 

 pursuing the " invariable rotation of (1) fallow, (2) wheat, (3) pease 

 or oats, and then fallow again." Speaking of the waste lands at 

 the foot of the Black Mountains above the Golden Valley, the 

 Reporter says : " I do appeal to such gentlemen as have often 

 served on Grand Juries in this county, whether they have not had 

 more felons brought before them from that than from any other 

 quarter of the county." He attributes this lawlessness to the 

 right, which the cottager possessed in virtue of his arable holding, 

 of turning out stock on the hills, and to the encouragement which 

 this right afforded him of living by any means other than his 

 labour. 



1 Bishton's Shropshire (1794), pp. 8, 24. 



2 Clark's Herefordshire (1794), pp. 69, 28. 



