1920.] 



The Enclosure of Open-Field Farms. 



837 



holdings. A holder spent hours in visiting his scattered strips, 

 and the toil of tillage operations was enormously increased by 

 the distances between the different parts of his arable land. 

 The distinction between grass and arable was permanent, 

 though both might profit by conversion. All the occupiers were 

 bound by rigid customary rules, compelled to treat all kinds of 

 soil alike, unable to differentiate in their cultivation, bound 

 to the unvarying triennial succession, obliged to keep exact 

 time with one another in sowing and reaping their crops. Each 

 man was at the mercy of his neighbours. The idleness of one 

 might destroy the industry of twenty. If one partner cleaned 

 his strip, his labours might be wasted by the foul condition of 

 the next. Drainage was practically impossible. If one man 

 water-furrowed his land, or scoured his courses, his outfalls 

 might be choked by the apathy or slovenliness of his neighbour. 

 The supply of manure was inadequate. It need scarcely be 

 said that there were no artificials. Natural fertilisers only 

 existed. The value of town refuse, and other substances, were 

 known to the Middle Ages. So also were the uses of marl 

 and lime and chalk. But such fertilisers, if procurable, were 

 often too costly for small open-field farmers. The dung of their 

 live stock was generally their only resource, and it was wasted 

 over the wide expanse of pasture which the cattle traversed in 

 pursuit of food. Unable to supply adequate winter keep, and 

 possessing no separate closes, open-field farmers reared calves 

 and lambs under every disadvantage. Ill-fed all the year round, 

 and half starved in the winter, the live stock dwindled in size. 

 The crowding of the sheep and cattle on the over-stocked and 

 practically unstinted pasture, or in the common-fold on the 

 stubbles, favoured the generation of all kinds of disease. Stock- 

 breeding on improved lines was an impossibility. 



The remedy for many of these defects was individual occupa- 

 tion. A freeholder whose land lay in an open-field farm was 

 only half an owner; a leaseholder found the value of his lease 

 similarly reduced. Only on enclosed land, separately occupied, 

 could men secure the full fruit of their enterprise. To some 

 extent the effective and practical working of the system was 

 increased without substantial change in its framework. It 

 very early became a practice to take in closes for various pur- 

 poses, especially for stocking; or to make temporary or 

 permanent enclosures from the common, which were often 

 under the plough, and formed the " ancient inclosures " of 

 eighteenth century awards; or even to enclose portions of the 



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