54 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



the right was rarely open to all. Every farmer had the right of 

 pasture on the waste. 



Though these common fields contained the best soil in the king- 

 dom, they exhibited the most wretched cultivation. "Never," says 

 Arthur Young, "were more miserable crops seen than all the spring 

 ones in the common fields; absolutely beneath contempt." The 

 causes of this deficient tillage were three in number: (i) The same 

 course of crops was necessary. No proper rotation was feasible, the 

 only possible alteration being to vary the proportion of different white- 

 straw crops. There were no turnips or artificial grasses, and conse- 

 quently no sheep-farming on a large scale. Such sheep as there were, 

 were miserably small; the whole carcase weighed only 28 Ibs. and the 

 fleece 35 Ibs. each, as against 9 Ibs. on sheep in enclosed fields. 

 (2) Much time was lost by labourers and cattle "in travelling to many 

 dispersed pieces of land from one end of a parish to another." (3) Per- 

 petual quarrels arose about rights of pasture in the meadows and 

 stubbles and respecting boundaries; in some fields there were no 

 "baulks" to divide the plots, and men would plough by night to steal 

 a furrow from their neighbours. 



For these reasons the connection between enclosure and improved 

 agriculture was very close. The early enclosures, made under the 

 Statutes of Merton (1235) and Westminster (1285), were taken by 

 the lords of the manor from the waste. But in these cases the lord 

 had first to prove that sufficient pasturage had been left for the com- 

 moners; and if rights of common existed independent of the posses- 

 sion of land, no enclosure was permitted. These early enclosures went 

 on steadily, but the enclosures which first attract notice toward the 

 end of the fifteenth century were of a different kind. They were often 

 made on cultivated land, and, if Nasse is correct, they took the form, 

 not only of permanent conversions from arable into pasture, but of 

 temporary conversions from arable into pasture, followed by recon- 

 version from pasture into arable. The result was a great increase of 

 produce. The lord having separated his plots from those of his 

 neighbours, and having consolidated them, could pursue any system 

 of tillage which seemed good to him. The alternate and convertible 

 husbandry mentioned above was introduced; the manure of the 

 cattle enriched the arable land, and "the grass crops on the land 

 ploughed up and manured were much stronger and of a better quality 

 than those on the constant pasture." Under the old system the 



