148 Rents ^ Wages^ and Profits in Agriculture 



complaints arose as to the overgrowth of 

 head compared with the body, according 

 to the favourite simile. 



Not only do we find, as far back as the 

 sixteenth century, complaints of the exces- 

 sive growth of London, but also we find 

 complaints equally emphatic of the de- 

 population of the country. This was most 

 noticeable in the first period of the great 

 enclosures, 1470 to 1530, which were, as 

 already pointed out, to a great extent 

 undertaken in connection with the develop- 

 ment of sheep farming. The creation of 

 sheep farms involved to a great extent the 

 conversion of arable into pasture. The 

 complaint made by " W. S." (for a long time 

 erroneously supposed to be Shakespeare) 

 summarises the popular view. "Those 

 sheepe is the cause of all these mischiefs, 

 for they have driven husbandry out of the 

 country by the which was increased before 



