1921.] 



The Enclosure of pen-Field Farms 



911 



conntry. Population was shifting to the Xorth. and collecting 

 into towns. From these new industrial centres, more and more 

 loudly, rose the demand for food. Little room was left for an 

 agricultural system which was only self-supporting. Some effort 

 was made to adapt it to the changing conditions. An Act of 

 Parliament in 1773 enabled a majority of partners in the agrarian 

 association to compel the consent of the minority to adopt the 

 new crops in their rotations. Here and there, but with extreme 

 rarity, instances are recorded of the introduction of turnips and 

 clover in open fields. The Act may not have been made known 

 or pushed with sufficient vigour in rural districts. Anyhow it 

 proved a failure. Enclosure was no longer a question only of 

 social or agricultural advantage : it had become one of economic 

 necessity. The pressure steadily increased in severity. It cul- 

 minated during the Napoleonic War. when every pound of food 

 became of national value. At the declaration of peace in 1815 

 the old system of common cultivation had practically disappeared, 

 and the newer system of individual occupation was almost uni- 

 versally installed in its place. Socially the change was a loss; 

 economically its justification is complete. Under the new agri- 

 cultural system Great Britain had been enabled to keep pace 

 with her expanding needs, and. out of her own agricultural 

 resources, not only to stand the strain of •22 years of war. but in 

 1840 to supply bread and meat to a population which, as com- 

 pared with 1760. had more than doubled. It w-as a task which, 

 unless centuries of experience were reversed, could never have 

 been accomplished by the ancient system of open-fields. 



B *^ 



