SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



duction of a system of rotation of crops, and the extension of what is known 

 as artificial pasture by the more extended use of rye grass, clover, and sainfoin. 

 The Staffordshire agriculturists had moved but slowly in the way of supple- 

 menting their natural resources, judging by the evidence of Pitt, who 

 made an agricultural survey for the newly-formed Board of Agriculture, and 

 reported on it in 1796. 'Upon the whole,' he says, 'to the eye of the 

 intelligent agricultural stranger it would convey the idea of a county just 

 emerging from a state of barbarism.' A want of initiative seems to have 

 been general, and the farmers are said to suffer from ' want of education and 

 reading, though they are not wanting in readiness to adopt established im- 

 provements.' no 



A similar want of intelligence and adaptability in the agricultural 

 labourer seems to be shown by the evidence of a farmer who had been 

 successfully ploughing with Leicestershire ploughs, worked by ploughmen 

 from that county. But when these men returned to their homes the ploughs 

 were useless, ' for,' said he, ' they might as well have taken the ploughs with 

 them, for Staffordshire men could not plough with them.' m 



Pitt reported that the most considerable portion of the cultivated land 

 was by that time inclosed, only about one hundred acres remaining in common 

 fields, viz. at Stafford, Stone, Cheddleton, and Bloxwich. 113 Most of the 

 inclosures date only from the beginning of the eighteenth century, though 

 there is evidence of a certain number of small inclosures made in the early 

 part of the seventeenth century in the neighbourhood of the Dove and near 

 Needwood Forest, viz. at Rolleston, Uttoxeter, and Marchington. 113 



Shaw refers to the inclosure of the land round Wolverhampton, mostly 

 effected at the opening of the eighteenth century, and describes the great 

 productiveness of a certain tract of meadow which was nothing but a morass 

 in the sixteenth century, and was known as the ' Hungry Leas.' 1U 



The case of Elford parish, too, described by Mr. Bourne, and quoted by 

 Pitt, is a good example of the beneficial results generally accruing from 

 inclosure. 'The greater part of the parish of Elford,' says Mr. Bourne, 'was 

 common field till 1765, when an Act was obtained for an inclosure. By 

 inclosure rents have been trebled and the tenants are better enabled to dis- 

 charge them. About five hundred acres out of nineteen hundred are in 

 tillage, which we suppose bring as much grass to market as the whole parish 

 did in its open state. The quantity of cheese made now in proportion to 

 that made prior to the inclosure is more than three to one ; the proportion of 

 beef and mutton produced on the land is still greater, as much as ten to one, 

 for though there were sometimes many sheep kept in the common fields, 

 they were so subject to the rot that little or no profit arose to the farmer, or 

 produce to the community. Respecting population there were, prior to the 

 inclosure, fifty-seven houses; there are now seventy-six, and 360 inhabitants; 

 the increase is not due to manufactures, merely to improved cultivation, 

 which demanded more labour.' lu 



" Pitt, Agric. Surv. (1796), 26. '" Ibid. 389. 



"* The period from 1760 to 1830 was remarkable for the great number of Inclosure Acts for this county 

 passed by Parliament. 



"* Rentals and Surv. Duchy of Lane. (Rec. Com.), 930, 991. 

 114 Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. ii, 165. 

 " Pitt, Agric. Surv. 41. 



293 



