68 Plant-life of the Oxford District 



day; and as accommodation for horses and retainers within the walls was 



naturally limited, the broad meadows, especially those south of the town, 



afforded an ideal camping ground once the hay was cut. 1 



Comparatively little change has been effected in the general scheme of 



husbandry to the last century. The meadow pastures are still maintained 



by the cutting of the hay, a second crop being commonly taken in September, 



and the fields more or less grazed in autumn and winter. Flooding has been 



much reduced, and in absence of special manuring the hay tends to deteriorate 



both in quality and quantity. 2 Most of the area has been allotted and enclosed. 



Port Meadow is maintained as permanent pasture, and is grazed by numbers 



of cattle and horses. Where such pasture-land is not cut, it soon reverts to 



Juncus-a.ssocia.tlon (Kennington), or to thorn-scrub (Binsey). 



The country beyond the immediate river-area is dotted with farmsteads, 

 about j mile apart, still maintaining old sites, as indicated by their water- 

 supply from deep springs ; though many have been swallowed up in the 

 urban area (Black- Hall) or replaced by institutions. 3 



Other land maintained as pasture, grazed or cut for hay, or cultivated 

 under grass and clover or other fodder-plants, follows the normal evolution 

 of such land, as taken in from the rough common-land or waste. 



In mediaeval England pasture-land for grazing and meadow land for hay 

 were held in common, in addition to the very large amount of open waste land 

 utilized for rough grazing, and the same system prevailed to the sixteenth 

 century, or for most of the country to the beginning of the eighteenth. Port 

 Meadow, originally 440 acres, the property of some 500 Freemen of the City of 

 Oxford (and not of the ratepayers), persists as a relic of this system, held since 

 the time of Edward the Confessor ; since, as such flood-land was abundant, it 

 was hardly worth taking over by the Norman Governor. 



It was not until the provision of fields with hedges for cattle ('closes') 

 came into general use, that other more definite pasture-fields were isolated. 

 Thus Fitzherbert (Book of Surveying, 1523) recommends the allocation of 

 pastures of the communal farm-land into a 'Six-field' system; i.e. giving in 

 addition to the general Three-field scheme of husbandry of (i) Winter Wheat, 

 (2) Spring Corn, Barley, (3) Fallow new fields as (4) Best Leys for feeding 

 horses, (5) Rough Pasture for cattle and sheep, and (6) Meadow to be cut for 

 Hay. This would give in practice five fields for winter grazing, and three (fallow, 

 leys, and pasture) for the summer, with the possibility of alternating the cornland 

 and the pastures in a rotation. 



From this time dates the increasing cultivation of pasture and grass-fields, 

 still continued and hedged. The introduction of special fodder-plants from the 

 continent, as Sainfoin, was followed by the general cultivation of ' Dutch ' Clover 

 (Trifolium repens), and grass-seeds, more particularly 'Ray Grass' (Lolium 

 perenne). Plot (1705) is particularly enthusiastic on the cultivation of Ray 

 Grass, and records its introduction to the district by a farmer of Islip. 4 



1 Plot, loc. cit., p. 21, gives a good list of the early Parliaments and ecclesiastical councils held 

 at Oxford between 1002 and 1250 (22 in number). It was a comparative accident that Magna 

 Charta was signed at Runnymede, 30 miles SE. down the river, in a meadow very similar to IrHey 

 Fields, maintained as mown pasture. 



2 Orr (1916), Agriculture in Oxfordshire, p. 180, 'very few of the Thames meadows yielding 

 anything more than a rather small cut of indifferent hay.' Within living record, Marston Meadows, 

 treated with abundant stable-manure, harrowed and flooded, yielded record crops of grass ' chin- 

 high ', probably mainly Dactylis and Arrhenatherum. 



3 A typical Oxford farm of 300 acres should maintain 6 families, that of the farmer and 

 5 labourers, giving an agricultural population of about 60-70 per square mile, as the limit of the 

 capacity of the land to support. Ashby (1917), Small Holdings in Oxfordshire, p. 177. 



The present district taken as about 30 square miles, carries a population, mostly urban, of about 

 100,000, or 50 times more than the land will account for. This sufficiently indicates the lack of 

 dependence of the modern population on local plant-life, with consequent indifference to its 

 problems. 



4 Plot (1705), p. 156. ' It having precedence of all other Grasses, in that it takes almost in all 

 sorts of poor Land, endures the Drought of Summer best, and in Spring is the earliest Grass of any' : 



