8 CO-OPEKATION IN DANISH AGKTCULTURE 



individual of all inducement to enterprise and restricted his 

 initiative. It became an absolute necessary condition of 

 further development and progress, that the joint tenure and 

 joint working of the soil should cease. 



The great rural reforms in Denmark towards the close of 

 the eighteenth century caused the co-operation on the land 

 gradually to disappear. The greatest importance attaches to 

 the Laws of ^3rd April, 1781, and 15th June, 1792. These 

 initiated and regulated the enclosures^ of which very many 

 were carried out in the decade 1790 to 1800 ; the joint tenure 

 of land ceased, the villages were broken up, the^village land 

 was so enclosed that the fields allotted to each peasant should 

 form one continuous piece of land, lying round his farmstead, 

 which was moved out from the village and rebuilt on the land 

 which became his individual possession, or, in the case of a 

 tenant, his individual holding: An enormous amount of work 

 was accomplished during these years ; in 1801 about 5000 

 peasant farms on the island' of Sealand, or about one- third of 

 the total number, had been enclosed ; by 1802 about one-half 

 of all the land in Denmark had been enclosed ; by the end 

 of the thirties only one per cent, of the land was still left in 

 joint tenure, and the last of this has now been long since 

 enclosed. 



It was the enclosure of the land and the emancipation from 

 villenage which terminated the old and introduced the new 

 epoch, the emancipation as far as* the personal condition of 

 the peasants was concerned, the enclosure with regard to the 

 agricultural conditions. It was the enclosure and the moving 

 of the farmsteads from the villages out to the enclosed holdings 

 which caused the village life under the former co-operative 

 system gradually to disappear. No wonder that the peasants 

 in many cases grieved to see the old time co-operation die away. 

 They had been born and bred under its influence, had shared 

 each other's sorrows and pleasures, they had learnt to value 

 the means of mutual aid and support. 



More than half a century was destined to pass before 

 co-operative principles again came into play to any great 

 extent in Danish agriculture. Naturally they had to be ad- 

 justed to the altered conditions. The old co-operation, as 



