240 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 



for great cattle exist in all of them, and even sheep-walk privileges 

 in many, yet the natural industry of the people is such, that, when- 

 ever a person can get four or five acres together, he plants a white- 

 thorn hedge round it, and sets an oak at every rod distance, which 

 is consented to by a kind of general courtesy from one neighbour 

 to another." " Land," he elsewhere remarks, " when very much 

 divided, occasions considerable loss of time to the occupier, in 

 going over a great deal of useless space, in keeping a communication 

 with the different pieces. As it lies generally in long narrow slips, 

 it is but seldom it can receive any benefit from cross-ploughing and 

 harrowing, therefore it cannot be kept so clean ; but what is still 

 worse, there can be but little variety observed in the system of 

 cropping ; because the right which every parishioner has of com- 

 monage over the field, a great part of the year, prevents the sowing 

 of turnips, clover, or other grass seeds, and consequently cramps 

 a farmer in the stock which he would otherwise keep." Commons 

 of pasture lay " in all parts of the county, and are very different 

 in their quality. Those in the neighbourhood of Wymondham 

 and Attleborough are equal to the finest land in the county, worth, 

 at least, twenty shillings an acre ; being capable of making either 

 good pasture, or producing corn, hemp or flax. There are other 

 parts which partake of a wet nature and some of a furze and heathy 

 quality ; but they are most of them worth improving, and all 

 of them capable of producing something ; and it is a lamentable 

 thing, that those large tracts of land should be suffered to remain 

 in their present unprofitable state." Under the head of Poor 

 Rates, the Reporter observes " that the larger the common, the 

 greater the number and the more miserable are the poor." In 

 the parishes of Horsford, Hevingham, and Marsharn, which " link 

 into each other, from four to nine miles from Norwich, there are 

 not less than 3,000 acres of waste land, and yet the average of the 

 rates are, at least, ten shillings in the pound. This shows the 

 absolute necessity of doing something with these lands, or these, 

 uncultivated, will utterly ruin the cultivated parts, for these 

 mistaken people place a fallacious dependence upon these pre- 

 carious commons, and do not trust to the returns of regular labour, 

 which would be, by far, a better support to them." Of Wymondham 

 Common, Arthur Young 1 wrote in 1801. The area was 2,000 

 acres ; but " the benefit to the poor is little or nothing further 

 1 Inquiry into the propriety of applying Wastes, etc., 1801. 



