8 
Landmarlis in British Farming. 
ung Anglais ” as a byword, though his English translator is 
patriotic enough to translate it “ drunk as a Switzer.” These 
alehouses were generally kept by women, like Elynour 
Rummyng, who, as the word “ brewster ” denotes, brewed the 
ale they sold. Then, as now, the consumers were often de- 
frauded. At every manor court the oiScial ale-taster presented 
the “ tipplers,” or ale-sellers, for the use of false measures or 
adulteration of their wares with salt and other provocatives of 
thirst. 
The house and homestead of the peasantry were originally 
the only permanent enclosures, and the only property which 
they could be said to hold in separate ownership. The rest of 
the village land was held and farmed in common. It consisted 
of three portions — arable land, meadow, and pasture. 
All round the village lay a bare expanse of arable land, 
generally divided into three huge fields. One of these fields 
was sown with wheat or rye ; another with barley, oats, beans, 
or pease ; the third lay fallow. The whole was cultivated 
according to the same unvarying triennial rotation. Each of 
the three fields was cut up into “ furlongs,” and subdivided 
into acre or half-acre strips, separated from one another by rough, 
bush-grown balks, or “ dooles,” of uuploughed turf. The com- 
plete holding of each villager was so divided that each man had 
a third of his land in each of the three fields, and the three 
bundles of strips so allotted did not lie together, but were sepa- 
rated and intermixed in order that all might receive their due 
proportion of good or bad land. Thus, supposing John Nokes 
to hold thirty acres, ten acres would be in the wheat field, ten in 
the barley field, ten in the fallow field, and the ten acres in each 
field would be divided so that no two were contiguous. From 
seed-time to harvest, the strips were fenced off for the benefit 
of the individual to whom they belonged. After the crops 
were cleared, the fences were removed ; common rights were 
revived ; and the cattle of the village wandered promiscuously 
over the whole. 
Besides the arable lands, there were the meadows, which 
were annually assigned to the use of individuals from Candlemas 
to Midsummer Day, and for the remainder of the year were 
pastured in common. Beyond the arable and meadow lands 
lay the roughest and poorest land, which was left uncleared and 
in its native wildness, affording timber for building, fencing, 
or fuel, mast and acorns for swine, rough pasture for the ordi- 
nary live-stock, and rushes, reeds, and heather for thatches, 
ropes, beds, and a variety of other uses in the farm or the 
house. 
