256 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the com- 

 mons was often worth very little. Let one man, it was said 

 in 1795, put a cow on a common in spring for nothing, and 

 let another pay a farmer is. 6d. a week to keep a cow of 

 equal value on enclosed land. When both are driven to 

 market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will 

 more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk 

 meanwhile has been much superior. 



The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the 

 great increase in the weight of cattle not only to the im- 

 proved methods of breeding, but to their being fed on good 

 enclosed lands instead of wastes and commons.^ Even when 

 commons were stinted they were in general overstocked, while 

 disease was always being spread with enormous loss to the 

 commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights, 

 often crowded out the smaller. 



There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 

 'squatters' on commons who had seized and occupied land 

 without any legal title. As a rule, if these people had been 

 in possession twenty-one years their title was respected ; if 

 not, no regard was very justly paid to them on enclosure, 

 and they were deprived of what they had seized. 



Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height ; he was 

 a competent and accurate observer, and this is his picture 

 of the ' commoner ' -."^ ' The advantages which cottagers and 

 poor people derive from commons and wastes are rather 

 apparent than real; instead of sticking regularly to labour 

 they waste their time in picking up a few dry sticks or injt; 

 grubbing on some bleak moor. Their starved pig or two,* 

 together with a few wandering goslings, besides involving 

 them in perpetual altercations with their neighbours, are 

 dearly paid for in care, time, and bought food. There are 

 thousands and thousands of acres in the kingdom, now the 



* Report^ p. 204. * State of the Poor, pp. i, xviii. 



