ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 5 
in the cultivated parts of England and Wales, and 
the residue in the mountain districts. Of this great 
extent they considered that one million acres might 
be cultivated with profit and advantage to the country, 
and that when this was effected there would still remain 
about one-sixth part of England and Wales open and 
uninclosed, and subject to common rights—an extent 
so great as to show how erroneous had been the ap- 
prehensions of the speedy inclosure of Commons. 
Two years later, however, the same Commission 
presented a report to Parliament with a very different 
tale. They had, in the interval, made a detailed 
examination of the tithe commutation awards, which 
covered the whole country, and showed distinctly how 
much in 1834 was Common land. By this it appeared 
that there were at that time no more than 2,630,000 
acres of Common or Commonable land, or five and a half 
millions less than their previous estimate. From this a 
deduction has to be made of land inclosed under private 
Acts between 1834 and 1845, and under the Commons 
Act of 1876, and also of land which has been filched 
from Commons under the Statute of Merton.* Making a 
rough estimate of these inclosures, it is probable that 
there remain from 2,000,000 to 2,250,000 acres of 
Commons still open. Of this, a very small proportion 
is believed to be suitable for cultivation as arable land. 
The remainder is either mountain land, which it would 
not be worth while to inclose with fences, or inferior 
land in cultivated districts or near to towns, which 
* Deduction was made of inclosures under the Act of 1845, 
