242 OPEN-FIELD FARMS AND PASTURE COMMONS 



tenths of the sheep of the common fields of the country are " coarse 

 in their heads and necks, proportionately large in their bones, high 

 on the leg, narrow in their bosoms, shoulders, chines and quarters, 

 and light in their thighs, and their wool is generally of a very in- 

 different quality, weighing from three to four pounds per fleece. . . . 

 The sheep bred upon the inclosures are generally of a much superior 

 quality . . . very useful and profitable." Thirteen years later 

 (1807), 1 43 parishes, or about a third of the county, were farmed 

 on the open-field system. To the rapid spread of enclosures and to 

 the influence and example of great landlords, the Reporter attributed 

 the material improvement in the sheep stock of the county. 



Out of 147,000 acres of arable land in Cambridgeshire 2 (1794) 

 132,000 lay in open-fields. The rental of the enclosed land averaged 

 18s. per acre, and that of the open-fields 10s. On the uplands 

 of the county, as distinguished from the fen districts, there were 

 2,000 acres of half-yearly meadow lands which were grazed by the 

 village partners from hay-harvest till Easter ; 7,500 acres of high- 

 land common ; 8,000 acres of fen or moor common, which, though 

 easily drained, " contribute little to the support of the stock, though 

 greatly to the disease of the rot in the sheep and cows." The 

 Reporter considered that no general improvement of the farming 

 of the county was possible until the intermixed lands of " the com- 

 mon open fields " were laid together and occupied in severalty. He 

 made it part of his business to enquire into the feeling of " the 

 yeomanry in their sedate and sober moments ... as to this 

 important innovation upon the establishment of ages. A few have 

 given an unqualified dissent, but they were flock-masters ; others 

 have concurred under certain limitations, but the mass of the 

 farmers are decidedly for the measure in question." He estimates 

 that the general average produce per acre of enclosed land exceeded 

 that of the open-fields in the following proportions : wheat, 3 

 bushels 1 peck ; rye, 3 pecks ; barley, 15 bushels 1 peck ; oats, 

 1 bushel 1 peck ; peas, 2 bushels 1 peck. " But, if a single instance 

 be adverted to, and a comparison made between the parishes of 

 Childersley, which is enclosed, and Hardwicke, which remains in 

 open common field, and which parishes appear by the journal to 

 consist of a perfectly similar soil," the result is much more favour- 

 able to enclosures. Childersley produced 24 bushels of wheat to 



1 Batchelor's Bedfordshire (1808), pp. 217, 537 



2 Vancouver's Cambridgeshire (1794), pp. 193, 203, 195, 112, 111. 



