48 I N C L O S U R E S. 



IN CLOSURES, 



THERE has no doubt been a time (and 

 not perhaps many centuries piift) when the 

 entire country lay open ; when conmion 

 fields, common meadows, common paflures^ 

 open woods, and extenfivc forcfls and waftes, 

 uere the only divifion of lands in this 

 kingdom. Even the demefne lands of the 

 feudal lords appear to have once lain open 

 with the lands of their tenants. 



FiTZHERBERT, who wrote about two hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago *, fpeaking of the 



herbage 



* Antmo>' V FiTZHERBERT was Judge of the Court 

 of Common Pleas in the reign of Kcary VIII. Befide 

 his Natura Brcviam, Juftice of Peace, and other works 

 in the law, he left two on Rural Economy — the Boke 



OF IiUSbANDRY and thc BoKE OF SURVEYING; — 



the firft treatifcs probably which were written on the 

 ful)jeft in the Engliflx language ; and thc beft that wcrs 

 wrifen for more than a century afterward. Tlicre haa 

 been fomc doubt about whether thcfc two trcatifes were 

 really written by Jitd^c Fitzherbcrt ; but I flatter my- 

 fclf I fliall, in its proper place, be able to adduce fuih- 

 cient evidence of their being his pi.c)da(5tioi;s. 



