History of Agricultural Rent in England 17 



progress of rents, we may leave these small 

 owners on one side. 



With this method of tenant farming 

 cultivation in common began to lose its 

 hold. No progress was possible when all 

 the land was cultivated in the same slovenly 

 way, with exactly the same crops year after 

 year. Owing to the progress of the woollen 

 manufacture on the one side, and the 

 greater expense of landlord cultivation of 

 arable on the other, encouragement was 

 given to the creation of sheep farms. 

 Large tracts of land, formerly arable, 

 were converted into pasture for sheep. 

 This first great period of enclosures lasted 

 about sixty years -from say 1470 to 1530. 

 The enclosures were, of course, not uni- 

 versal and not all for sheep - - but the 

 sheep farming led to the eviction on a 

 large scale of the rural population formerly 

 engaged in agriculture. The landowners 



