Rural Depopulation 149 



all kinds of foods, but now only sheepe, 

 sheepe, sheepe." 



But apart from this cause of rural de- 

 population, there was at this time (i.e., 

 sixteenth century) another cause more 

 analogous to that at work in later times 

 that is to say, there was a method of 

 enclosing resorted to with the view of 

 increasing the productiveness of the arable 

 land, just as in the second period of 

 enclosures at the end of the eighteenth 

 century. The idea was to consolidate and 

 rearrange the strips or long acres in the 

 common fields, so that each farmer should 

 have his land more together and divided 

 only into a number of closes, which is 

 simply the contracted form of enclosure. 



Fitzherbert (the author already quoted), 

 in his Book of Surveying, shows that 

 land worth 6d. an acre the old customary 

 rent may be made to yield 8d. an acre 



