906 The E^XLOSL"RE of Open-Field Farms. [Jan., 



17th centuries, so far as it was agrarian in its character. It 

 may have become necessary in the national interest ; but the 

 land might have been brought into cultivation with less loss to 

 the commoners. The point is social and legal rather than agri- 

 cultural. But the suggestion of Alderman Box, to whose inte- 

 resting memorial reference has been already made, was worthy 

 of consideration. He advocates whole-heartedly the cultivation 

 of wastes, but he lays his finger on the difficulty. Vv^ile the 

 wastes existed, the herbage and other smaller profits were shared 

 by the manorial lord and his commoners; when they were 

 brought into cultivation, the di\nsion was at the pleasure of the 

 lord alone. He therefore suggests that the lord and four or five 

 of the gravest tenants, selected by their fellovvs, should divide 

 and allot the land in proportion to their existing holdings, each 

 allotment to be conditional on its being brought into cultivation 

 within two years. 



If the counsel of men like Box had been in some form followed, 

 a bitter controversy and a great social loss might have been 

 avoided. Similar advice had been offered by Fitzherbert, the 

 father of English agricultural literature (1523'i. It had also been 

 given in one of the most striking economic treatises of the 16th 

 -century, The Compendious or Brieje Examination; attributed to 

 John Hales (1549). If " everie man," says the Doctor in the 

 dialogue. " that had Right to commen, had for his portion a 

 pece of the same to himself e Inclosed, I thincke no harm 

 but rather good should come " from enclosure. The demand 

 for " three acres and a cow " has a most respectable antiquity. 

 Thomas Becon (1549) suggested that landlords should attach 

 to every cottage enough " land to keep a cow or two." On 

 the same line followed G-abriel Plattes (1639). "I would 

 wish," he says. " that in every Parish where Commons are 

 enclosed, a corner might be laid to the poore mens houses, 

 that everyone might keep a cow or for the maintenance of his 

 familie two." Throughout the whole Stewart period the 

 protection of the commoners was a commonplace of agricul- 

 tural WTiters who advocated individual occupation. It was 

 not enclosure, but its abuse, to which objection was mainly 

 taken. 



On purely agricultural ground the defence of the old system 

 was rapidly breaking down. Fear of depopulation had not 

 been the only motive which had inspired the early legislation 

 against enclosures. Scarcely less important as a motive was 

 dread of the loss of bread supplies- by the reduction of land 



