214 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
From the Hundred enumeration we gather that the number of 
hides in the county was 927^. The average taxable area of each 
manor was therefore something less than six-sevenths of a hide. 
This is rather above the average of the manors within the district 
under review, which cannot well be put at more than five-sevenths. 
Still, the difference is not important. The plough lands made a 
total of 368£, so that there were six times as many actual caru- 
cates as nominal hides. 
It is not possible to give more than approximate estimates of the 
extent of meadow, wood, and pasture, in consequence of the doubt 
that exists as to the value of the old mile and acre. Bringing them 
as nearly as may be to the present standards, we find, however, that 
the district did not contain less than twenty square miles of pasture, 
with quite as much of wood and coppice. The meadow land can 
be given exactly at 189^ acres. If we estimate the carucate at the 
100 to 120 acres which is commonly assigned to the hide as a 
ploughland — the arable to be worked and the meadow and pasture 
for the maintenance of the team — we shall get another fifty to sixty 
square miles, and shall thus be able to account for half our total 
area. But the extent of the carucate is really speculative, and, as 
I have said, the general Domesday statistics comprise only the 
smaller portion of the land — that to which the Commissioners 
assigned a definite appropriation and value. We may assume 
therefore that the aspect of this corner of Devon was very much 
wilder than these figures would indicate, and that, save between 
the estuaries of the Plym and the Yealm, where individual settle- 
ments were more thickly planted, the country was simply dotted 
with clearings. 
It is worth noting too that a large proportion of the manors — 
more than a third — had no pasture attached, that a fourth were 
without wood, and that a large proportion had no meadow. The 
absence of natural pasture is indeed a distinguishing characteristic 
of the lowlying manors as compared with the upland ; while it is 
the coast manors that as a class are peculiarly characterised by the 
absence of wood. The general conditions in fact correspond re- 
markably to those observable at the present day. The chief 
breadths of meadow land are evidently associated with rivers and 
streams, and were undoubtedly chiefly natural in their origin. 
One very notable point is the fact that the number of ploughs 
or plough-teams fell far short of the requirements of the arable 
