Harriett Bradley

“ If the price of wool was rising more rapidly than that of grain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (in spite of the statistical evidence to the contrary) it is reasonable that the differential advantage in grazing should finally come to an end when a new balance between tillage and grazing was established. It is not even surprising that the conversion of arable to pasture should have continued beyond the proper point, and that a contrary movement should set in. ”

“ The problem which confronted landowners during the Black Death was not so much an absolute lack of men on the manors, as a stubborn unwillingness on the part of these men to hold land. There were enough men left by the pestilence, but they were determined to avoid taking up the tenements whose holders had died. The pressure which was brought upon the villains to induce them to take up land and to prevent them from leaving the manor could not prevent the desertions, which had begun before the pestilence, and which took away the men who would naturally have supplied the places of those who died. ”

“ Even a few sixteenth-century instances of the plowing up of pasture land should be enough to arrest the attention of historians who believe that the conversion of arable land to pasture during this period is sufficiently explained by an assertion that the price of wool was high. What especial circumstances made it advantageous to cultivate land which had been under grass, while other land was being withdrawn from cultivation? Contemporary writers speak of the need of worn land for rest for a long period of years, and remark that it will bear well again at the end of the period. ”

“ The simplest system of husbandry is that of continuous wheat cultivation, practiced under modern conditions in new countries. When the virgin land is first broken up its fertility is high; so long as it remains under cultivation this level can no longer be maintained, but rapidly runs down. During this degradation process considerable quantities of plant food become available and a succession of crops can be raised without any substitution of manure ... After a time the unstable period is over and the new equilibrium level is reached at which the soil will stop if the old husbandry continues. ”

“ The acute distress undergone by those who were evicted from their holdings is sufficient indication of the difficulty of finding employment, and it is impossible that wages could remain at an exorbitant level when the enclosure of the lands of one open-field township made enough men homeless to supply any existing dearth of labor in all of the surrounding villages. If agriculture was unprofitable, it was not because laborers demanded excessive wages, but because of the low productivity of the land. ”

“ Here we have no capitalist systematically buying up land for grazing, but a withdrawal of land from cultivation by the tenants themselves, even though they were in no position to prepare it properly for grazing purposes. ”

“ A time came when these men must be either turned away, and their land leased to others, or else allowed to stay and make what poor living they could from the soil, without paying even the nominal rent which was to be expected of them.
Lord North's comment on the enclosure movement as he saw it in the seventeenth century is suggestive of the state of affairs which led to the eviction of these husbandmen:
Gentlemen of late years have taken up an humor of destroying their tenements and cottages, whereby they make it impossible that mankind should inhabit their estates. ”

“ Land whose holders died of the pestilence was still without tenants twenty-five and thirty years later, although persistent attempts had been made to force men to take it up. When compulsion succeeded only in driving men away from the manor, numerous concessions were made in the attempt to make land-holding more attractive. It is important to notice that these concessions were economic, not social. The force which was driving men away was not the desire to escape the incidents of serfdom, but the impossibility of making a living from holdings burdened with heavy rents. ”

“ The money received in commutation of customary labor, or as rent from land which had formerly been held for services was far less than the value of the services, and would not pay the wages of free men hired in place of the serfs who had formerly performed the labor. Moreover, the demesne land itself was for the most part so unproductive that it had hardly paid to cultivate it even at the slight expense incurred in furnishing food for the serfs employed; it was all the more a waste of money to hire men to plow it and sow it. ”

“ By improving land we add to our capital, while by robbing land we immediately add to our income; in doing so, however, we diminish out of all proportion our capital as farmers, the productive value of our farm land. ”

“ The profits of cultivating this unproductive land were so small that a deficit arose when it was necessary to meet the cost of maintaining for a few days the men employed on it. It is not surprising that men who had families to support and were trying to make a living from the soil abandoned their worthless holdings and left the manor. The lord had only to meet the expense of food for the laborers during the few days when they were actually at work plowing the demesne or harvesting the crop. ”

“ Land which, over a series of years, fails to produce enough to pay for cultivation is no longer planted. If the fertility of the soil is declining, this is shown by the gradual withdrawal from cultivation of the less productive land, as it is realized that it produces so little that it no longer pays to till it. ”

“ The land when so treated, however, enabled the investor to pay higher rents than the open-field husbandmen who "rubbed forth their estate in the poorest plight." [128]
A lord who was willing to consider only pecuniary advantage had everything to gain by clearing the land entirely of small holders, and putting it in the hands of men with capital. It is, therefore, to the credit of these landowners that there are so few authentic cases of the depopulation of entire villages and the conversion of all of the arable land into sheep runs. ”

“ The evidence is in many respects imperfect. It would be of great value, for instance, to have access to records of grain production over an area extensive enough, and for a long enough period, to furnish reliable statistical indications of the trend of productivity. It would be helpful to have exact information about the amount of land converted from arable to pasture in each decade of the period under consideration, and to know to what extent and at what dates land was reconverted to tillage after having been laid to grass. ”

“ The first agrarian statutes were of a characteristically restrictive nature, and no constructive policy was attempted by the government until after a century of futile attempts to deal with the separate evils of engrossing, enclosure, conversion to pasture, destruction of houses and rural depopulation. The first remedy these evils suggested was limitation of the amount of land which one man should be allowed to hold. ”

“ Even before the Black Death, it was frequently the case that villain holdings could be filled only by compulsion. The difficulty in finding tenants did not originate in the decrease in the population caused by the pestilence. There is little evidence that there was a lack of men qualified to hold land even after the Black Death, but it is certain that they sought in every way possible to avoid land-holding. The villains who were eligible in many cases fled, so that it became exceedingly difficult to fill a tenement when once it became vacant. ”

“ Orderly rearrangement of holdings into compact plots suitable for enclosure was difficult unless the small holders had all disappeared, leaving in the community only men of some means, who were able to undertake the expenses of [Pg 87/243] the readjustment. In most villages, however, holdings of all sizes were the rule. Some tenants had almost no land under cultivation, but picked up a living by working for others, and by keeping a few sheep on the commons and on the fallow lands of the town. There was thus always a fringe of peasant families on the verge of destitution. ”

“ The individual farmer can therefore improve his land only when in an economically strong position. A farmer who is failing to make a living on his farm is more likely to exploit his farm to the utmost; and when there is no room for further exploitation he is likely to meet the deficit by borrowing, and thus pledging the future productivity of his farm. [124]
While small holders in the open fields were in no position to pay higher rents, the land owners were suffering. ”

“ These limits are set by the nature of the soil and the climate, but the cultivator can attain any level he likes between them simply by changing his mode of husbandry. The lower equilibrium level is spoken of as the inherent fertility of the soil because it represents the part of the fertility due to the soil and its surroundings, whilst the level actually reached in any particular case is called its condition or "heart", the land being in "good heart "or "bad heart", according as the cultivator has pushed the actual level up or not ”

“ It is possible that the materials for a statistical study of soil productivity are in existence, but up to the present time they have not been published, and it is doubtful if this deficiency will be supplied. It is even more doubtful whether more can be learned about the rate of conversion of arable land to pasture than is now known, and this is little. ”