362 
The Making of the Land in England. 
such operations. For this purpose examination has been made, 
with the aid of the 6-inch Ordnance Map, into their nature 
and extent in a selected parish. The one in question is in the 
Midland counties, remote from anv considerable town, has a popu- 
lation less than 150, and probably never has had one of more 
than 200. It was enclosed in the reign of Elizabeth, being at that 
time for the most part open unenclosed commonable fields of 
arable and lammas land, some brakes of thorns and gorse, with a 
few old enclosures, probably not above 50 acres in extent, around 
the messuages, tofts and church. The area was, and is, 1648 acres. 
The surface soil is of a most varied character, some heavy clay, 
a small amount of gravel, more loam, and a considerable tract 
of red oolitic iron formation. It is extremely undulating and 
has been full of dangerous bogs and springs, the drainage of 
which has been difficult and costly, but not more so than has 
been the case in the surrounding parishes. To draw off the 
spring water man) of these drains have been cut to the depth 
of 15 and 20 feet. 
The snipe, the dotterel and woodcock, which up to the 
beginning of the century were common, are now hardly ever 
seen. As late as 1808, private diaries show that the squire of 
the place spent many a night with his draw-nets and setters in 
taking these birds, as well as other winged and ground game, 
the remains of a practice that no doubt was common enough 
before the days of enclosure. The badger, the fox, the foumart 
and mole were all placed in the same category of destructive 
vermin, and the hand of man was raised without any discrimi- 
nation against them. The visiting of neighbours at any dis- 
tance was suspended from October to April, and the coal, 
which was fetched from a considerable distance, was laid down 
before Michaelmas. The ways and roads were then broken up 
by the weather and were abandoned as unfit, alike for light 
vehicles and heavy-draught waggons. 
The surveyor's map of the Elizabethan deed shows that the 
proprietors divided their new allotments into eighteen Jarge 
enclosures, to which were added sixteen small crofts adjoining 
the thirty houses of the inhabitants, whose census came probably 
to about one hundred and fifty souls. Forty years ago there 
was no hard road to the adjoining village on the south, and 
even now the hard road to that on the north is in places not 
even commenced. 
The parish has ultimately been subdivided into 150 fields, 
now traversed by over three miles of substantial public carriage 
ways, with the addition of about one mile of occupation roads, 
giving access from the former to the properties of several 
owners. The public ways were set out in the Elizabethan 
