900 



plight. It is extremely improbable that the lands enclosed for 

 the private use of manorial lords were naturally inferior to 

 those left in common cultivation, and the folding rights of the 

 manor secured the largest and most concentrated supply of 

 manure to the demesne. Where land was in several occupation, 

 tillage could be converted into pasture and vice versa. Under 

 the rigid system of common cultivation, no such change vv^as 

 possible. Once under the plough always under the plough 

 was the rule. Though no figures are recorded to show the 

 yield of open-field farms, it is natural to suppose that the 

 decline in production was as great, if not greater. To the 

 smaller partners in the association the failure of fertility meant 

 progressive destitution. They had no means of arresting the 

 decline, wdiich showed itself in the abandonment of portions 

 of pioughland, and the frequent appearance of " leas " in the 

 midst of the arable fields. 



Evidence exists to show that in the 15th century many 

 holders recognised the hopelessness of their prospe{!ts by their 

 refusal or reluctance to take land. From natural causes the 

 open-field system was breaking down. Soil exhaustion was 

 squeezing out the smaller men. A man Vvith 15 arable acres, 

 yielding 10 bushels to the acre, had, deducting seed, a bread 

 supply for five persons from the 5 acres annually under wheat. 

 If the yield Vvas reduced to 5 bushels or less, the bread corn 

 only sufficed for two and a half persons. Much of the poverty 

 and misery of the rural population in both the great periods 

 of enclosures may be fairly attributed to the decreased pro- 

 ductivity of the land, though before the later period the peasant 

 had been able to supplement the scanty yield of the soil by 

 the money earnings of his domestic industries. When these 

 handicrafts were swept into factories, the open-field system, 

 unless it could be so modified as to allow the adoption of new 

 agricultural resources, was doomed to disintegration by its 

 own inherent defects. 



It is only just that this central agricultural fact should be 

 borne in mind in approaching either of the two great periods 

 when the continuous process of enclosure excited the strongest 

 criticism. In 1485-1560 the only remedy for the exhaustion 

 of fertility was the conversion of the worn-out arable land into 

 pasture, and the substitution of existing grass-land for the 

 necessary tillage. In 1760-1820 there was an alternative 

 remedy. It lay in the adoption of the newly-discovered 

 resources of the farmer, and the introduction of clover, 



