83S The Enclosure of Opex-Fiei.d Farms. [Dec, 



common arable land, a practice known as " several in open." 

 These were useful adaptations of the ordinary common-field 

 system. But they scarcely touched the fringe of the most 

 serious difficulty. 



The worst feature in the existing- system was the inevitable 

 and progressive decline in the productivity of the soil. Land 

 can be continuously cropped for corn if it is kept clean, well- 

 drained and adequately manured. But the arable land of open 

 fields was often foul. The balks harboured twitch; the fallows 

 left their triennial heritage of docks and thistles. The heavy 

 seeding required for crops points to the necessity of preventing 

 the corn from being smothered by w^eeds. Drainage, with the 

 appliances which mediaeval farmers commanded, was always 

 a puzzle, and on the open fields the task w^as made harder by 

 the difficulty of obtaining agreement among the contiguous 

 occupiers of the intermixed strips. The supply of manure was 

 always inadequate, and what there was did not always go on 

 the land. It is known from writers of the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries that straw and dung were often used for 

 fuel. Triennial fallows were no sufficient substitutes for clean 

 farming, drainage and fertilisers. Much was taken from the 

 soil and little replaced. Strong evidence exists to show that in 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the arable land, con- 

 .tinuously cropped for corn for several hundred years, was losing 

 its fertility. The yield w^as falling. Land which had produced 

 a livelihood for a man and his family ceased to supply his 

 necessary food. Portions were being abandoned as tillage. 

 There was difficulty in finding tenants before, as well as after, 

 the Black Death. Fines were paid for the privilege of refusing 

 an inheritance in a holding. Tenants were often obtainable 

 only under compulsion. The obvious remedy was to give the 

 arable land a prolonged rest under grass, and to bring the 

 pastures under the plough in substitution. How to effect 

 this necessary change was one of the agricultural problems of 

 our ancestors. So far as the demesne land of the manorial lord 

 was concerned, it could be withdrawn from the open-field farm, 

 and separately cultivated. When Fitzherbert wTote in 1523, 

 that process was practically complete. Some relief was obtained 

 by bringing under the plough new land reclaimed from the 

 forests. In some cases portions of the common pasture were 

 ploughed. In others the partners in the open-field farms were 

 encouraged to agree to exchange and consolidate their holdings, 

 or to take in separate closes out of the arable fields. Thua 



