The Nineteenth Century 121 



deep down for the plough, the practice of digging for it became flequent. In 

 181 1, there was being advocated the use of the "most excellent clay marl" 

 that underlay "the greatest part if not the whole of the Bedford Level"/ 

 By 1830, the practice was "so very modern" that Samuel Wells found 

 "some difficulty in giving an accurate account of its singular process".* 

 But the practice had come to stay; so much so that, in 1852, J. A. Clarke 

 could write: 



Within the last 30 years the system of digging and throwing up this clay where it 

 is too deep for the plough has been introduced into universal operation. The new 

 husbandry quickly extended itself: farmers may be cautious of new improvements, 

 but this was too obvious for dispute, too near at hand for refusal.^ 



Wherever clay could be found tolerably near the surface, "claying the 

 land became the acknowledged mode of cultivation in the Fenland".'' The 

 peat lands thus became "the most productive of soils yielding the most 

 luxuriant crops of wheat, oats, coleseed and turnips".^ 



ENCLOSING THE COMMON-FIELDS 



Of the 147,000 acres of arable land in Cambridgeshire in 1794, 132,000 

 acres lay in open-fields, and followed the traditional open-field husbandry 

 of the English plain. Of course it is possible that some of the 52,000 acres 

 of "Improved Pasture", recorded in Vancouver's estimate, included land 

 laid down to grass on enclosure. But even with this allowance, there can 

 be no doubt about the unenclosed character of the Cambridge country- 

 side. Corroboration is provided by the fact that of die ninety-eight 

 parishes described in detail by Vancouver, eighty-three were still open; 

 only fifteen had been enclosed. And Vancouver considered that no 

 improvement was possible until the intermixed strips "dispersed in the 

 common open fields" had been brought together into compact holdings. 

 Enclosure appeared "to be indispensably necessary" and urgent. 



"I have made it my particular care", he wrote, "to mix and converse with the 

 yeomanry of the county, and in their sedate and sober moments, to possess myself 

 fully of their experience, and local knowledge; and fmally to ascertain the general 

 sentiment as to this important innovation upon the establishment of ages. 



In some places, people were doubtful; thus at Teversham the idea of 

 enclosing was "not all relished". 7 In other places, "the most thinking 



' R. Parkinson, The Agriculture of the County of Hwitmgdon (1811), p. 299. 

 - S. Wells, History of the ... Bedford Level, i, 442 (1830). 

 3 J. A. Clarke, Fen Sketches (1852), pp. 244-5. 

 t J. M. Heathcote, op. cit. p. 90. Sec p. 152 below. 



5 J. A. Clarke, "On the Great Level of the Fens",7oi/r. Roy. Agric. Soc. viu, 92 

 (1848). 

 * C. Vancouver, p. 195. ^ Ibid. p. 47. 



