Agricultural Revolution 29 



ruined by the enclosures. But apparently this would only affect 

 these whose properties were very small. The larger proprietors 

 would not be annihilated, nor even seriously injured, either by the 

 division of the commons or by the cost of fencing 1 . They would 

 safely survive the enclosures. Further, not all the yeoman class even 

 came in contact with the movement. Many held land which had 

 been enclosed long ago. Nevertheless, even those members of the 

 class who had not suffered and could not suffer by the enclosures 

 disappeared in the course of the period 1760-1815. 



As early as 1770 it began to be said that the yeomanry were 

 vanishing. Arbuthnot, himself a large farmer, gives important evi- 

 dence on this point. He was a champion of the large farm system, 

 and set himself to reply to Price's attacks upon it. But he was 

 obliged to admit the fact of the disappearance of many of the yeoman 

 class, which Price had attributed to the development of large farming; 

 and he wrote : " I most truly lament the loss of our yeomanry, that 

 set of men who really kept up the independence of this nation ; and 

 sorry I am to see their lands now in the hands of monopolizing lords 2 ." 

 Marshall, writing in the year 1787, also admits the fact 3 . The reports 

 on the various counties published by the Board of Agriculture 

 between 1790 and 1815 also contain much discussion as to, or notice 

 of, this disappearance 4 . Of Westmorland, the classic country of the 

 small holder in England, Pringle reported in 1794 that the class was 

 diminishing day by day 5 . From the most various quarters about 

 this time comes corroborating evidence 6 . But more significant than 

 any mention of the fact is the light which is thrown on the nature of 

 the process of extinction. 



The disappearance of small properties in the period 1760-1815 

 did not always imply deterioration in the personal position of the 

 yeoman himself. Discussions of the subject seldom mention bank- 



1 See also Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 107 ff. 



2 Arbuthnot, op. cit. p. 139. 



3 Marshall, Norfolk, Vol. i, p. 9: "Formerly the farms were much smaller; but the 

 numerous little places of the yeomanry having fallen into the hands of men of fortune, and 

 being now incorporated with their extended estates, are laid out into farms of such sizes as 

 best suit the interest, or the conveniency, of the present proprietors." 



4 See e.g. Thos. Wedge, A General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire, 1794, p. n; 

 R. Brown, A General View etc. of Derby, 1794, p. 14; and Robertson, op. cit. p. 76. 



5 A. Pringle, A General View of the Agriculture of Westmorland, Edinburgh, 1794, 

 p. 40. 



6 E.g. Holland, Cheshire, p. 80 ; R. W. Dickson, A General View etc. of Lancashire, 

 1814, p. 10; The Complete English Farmer, 1807, under the head Yeomen: "This useful 

 and important class of society has been within these few years considerably lessened. " 



