Agricultural enclosure

“ The case for the Enclosures was that improved agricultural methods could not be used in the open fields: more food was grown for increasing town populations: much waste land ploughed: livestock immeasurably improved. ”

“ Others refer to the contemporary complaints of the bad effect of enclosure upon the quality of wool. The breed of sheep which could be kept in enclosed pastures was said to produce coarser wool than those grazing on the hilly pastures, and this deterioration in the quality of wool so cut down the profits from enclosures that men now preferred to plow them up again, and resume tillage. ”

“ They are interested in soil conservation, because it means prosperity to the farmer and an increase in the volume of farm products to be carried, and also an increase in their tonnage of agricultural machinery and implements and of all kinds of merchandise which a prosperous farmer will buy. ”

“ Let us conduct a campaign for increased production, at least one more cavan of rice or corn per hectare of the’ thousands we are now cultivating. The plans are ad­vanced for the setting up of a fertilizer plant to encourage larger agricultural production. ”

“ In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of the great revolution in agriculture by which the manorial system was converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several ownership and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste; it was that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small holders displaced and the countryside depopulated ”

“ Ranching will, therefore, support a certain, though not large, permanent population; while tillage, though the profitable market close by will have been largely reduced by the departure of the miners, will probably continue, because the land will have been furnished with farmhouses and fences, perhaps in places with irrigation works, and because the railways that will have been constructed will enable agricultural products to reach more distant markets, which by that time may possibly be less glutted with the cereals of North and South America. ”

“ The needs of agriculture are the most familiar cause of the destruction of the forest in new countries; for not only does an increasing population demand additional acres to grow the vegetables which feed it and its domestic animals, but the slovenly husbandry of the border settler soon exhausts the luxuriance of his first fields, and compels him to remove his household gods to a fresher soil. The extent of cleared ground required for agricultural use depends very much on the number and kinds of the cattle bred. ”

“ But when in this way the issue is raised of tillage versus pasture, it is essential, if we are to discuss it rationally, that we should envisage it clearly as applying only to a limited portion of agricultural land, to the portion which lies somewhere near the margin of transference, as things are now, between the two forms of agriculture. It might be socially desirable to bring under the plow a field which the farmer finds it only slightly more profitable to lease under grass ”

“ There is probably no country—there are few large farms even—where at least one-fourth of the soil is not either unfit for agricultural use, or so unproductive that, as pasture or as ploughland, it yields less pecuniary return than a thrifty wood. Every prairie has its sloughs where willows and poplars would find a fitting soil, every Eastern farm its rocky nooks and its barren hillsides suited to the growth of some species from our rich forest flora, and everywhere belts of trees might advantageously be planted along the roadsides and the boundaries and dividing fences. ”

“ He has no enclosures for cattle, sheep or poultry. He has no garden. He has not a single tree to shelter him from the sun. With land suited for every form of live stock and field farming he is enslaved to the deadly monotony of wheat growing.
There may be countries with a soil and climate such that white straw crops can be grown for a large number of years in succession without exhausting the land or setting up soil sickness. ”

“ One of the commons recommended for inclosure—Riccall Dam—is pasture land, and will never be available for growing corn, as it is subject to floods. It is close to the village, and is constantly used for cricket. The chief objection to its present condition is that the existing rights of turning out cattle upon it are improperly used, an evil which it is admitted could be remedied by regulation. If such an open space is to be inclosed, it is difficult to conceive what rural common, in the opinion of the Inclosure Commissioners, would be a fit subject for regulation. ”

“ The time is here when there should he undertaken a systematic diversion of a large part of this fertile soil over the swamp areas, building them into well drained, cultivable, fertile fields provided with waterways to serve for drainage, irrigation, fertilization and transportation. These great areas of swamp land may thus be converted into the most productive rice and sugar plantations to be found anywhere in the world, and the area made capable of maintaining many millions of people as long as the Mississippi endures, bearing its burden of fertile sediment. ”

“ During the forty years of which Mr Fisher here speaks, the Corn Laws were in operation, and enclosure was keeping pace with the price of corn. The dearer the quarter of wheat, the more Enclosure Bills. The subject of the Corn Laws is too important to be treated as part of another question, especially as it cannot be treated to any good purpose except in considerable detail. I will only say that enclosure received a fatal impetus in the days when rents were fixed on the expectation of wheat at 80s. ”

“ The men engaged in stock raising need small areas of irrigable lands for gardens and fields where agricultural products can be raised for their own consumption, and where a store of grain and hay may be raised for their herds when pressed by the severe storms by which the country is sometimes visited. In many places the lone springs and streams are sufficient for these purposes. Another and larger source of water for the fertilization of the gardens and fields of the pasturage farms is found in the smaller branches and upper ramifications of the larger irrigating streams. ”

“ The ordinary high-priced, manufactured, acidulated, so-called "complete" commercial fertilizers, in the small amounts that farmers can afford to use, and do use quite generally in the older states, serve in part as soil-stimulants and commonly leave the land poorer year by year; and if the farmers of the great Corn and Wheat Belts are ever to adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be done in the near future, or they too will awake to find their lands impoverished beyond self-redemption. ”

“ We remember only too well when our fertile fields yielded thirty-five to forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and that the same fields produced only about twelve bushels five years ago. In nearly every community there is found that pathetic omen of decay, the deserted farm—even in this young State.
The economic importance of soil conservation is so great that it can scarcely be estimated. ”

“ It neither takes in overflowed land beyond the bank, nor includes swamps or low grounds liable to be overflowed, but reclaimable for meadows or agriculture, or which, being too low for reclamation, though not always covered with water, may be used for cattle to range upon, as natural or uninclosed pasture. But it may include spots lower than the bluff or bank, whether there is or is not a growth upon them, not forming a part of that land which, whether low or high, we know to be upland or fast lowland, if such spots are within the bed of the river. ”

“ As a matter of fact, as erosion of the soil progresses, as good, productive land becomes more scarce, and as farm labor becomes more and more difficult to employ, the attention of informed farm owners and operators has been turning more and more to soil-building, perennial, permanent and labor-saving crops. Of these, grass and tree crops are, far and away, the most promising today. ”

“ Hopkins, as the young husband paused in his tirade against the government stations. “Thanks to the experiments conducted by the government, millions of acres that were considered barren are now bearing crops, and it is cultivation that has wrought the change. Where the rainfall is light and the expense of irrigation is high, the lack of water can be overcome to a certain extent by keeping the soil free from weeds and from a sun-baked crust, which cultivation does. In other words, dry-farming where the subsoil is suitable. ”

“ Another function of the forest reserves, the regulation of which is at present the most urgent problem of their management, is the use of the grazing lands within their boundaries. Sheep and cattle raising are, and will continue to be, two of the great industries of the arid region. The over-grazing of lands important in the conservation of water supply is harmful in the dying out and hardening of the soil, as a result of the removal of its cover of herbs and grasses, and, in the case of over-grazing by sheep, in the destruction of seedlings and young trees. ”

“ The animals are all folded, and the whole of their dung is returned to the soil, and the effect produced by this large addition of organic matter cannot fail to strike the visitor, who finds in spots where the herbage was previously so thin as to approach barrenness that he now has to wade knee-deep through a thick felt of grass. All over the farm the effect of adding this organic matter to the soil is everywhere apparent, and it is certain that the need of imported food-stuffs [168] for the animals must diminish in proportion to the increase of fertility of the farm. ”

“ The portion of the farm reduced in productive power for the moment goes to grass, while the labor and fertilizers are concentrated upon the fields that are broken for grain and vegetables. The removal of all the crop at harvest, and probably the pasturing of after-math, are the only matters of interest that the fields, depleted by cultivation and seeded down to grass, have for the owner until the poor hay yield and the need of a sod for corn draw attention again to them. ”

“ In the structure of the barn, and in its interior accommodation, much will depend upon the branches of agriculture to which the farm is devoted. A farm cultivated in grain chiefly requires but little room for stabling purposes. Storage for grain in the sheaf, and granaries, will require its room; while a stock farm requires a barn with extensive hay storage, and stables for its cattle, horses, and sheep, in all climates which do not admit of such stocks living through the winter in the field, as is the case in the great grazing districts west of the Alleghanies. ”

“ A rotation of crops, based on the clover culture, is, I have no doubt, the most certain system by which the permanent improvement of the soil may be effected. The exemption of the land from stones and large stumps, the ease with which it can be tilled, the mildness of the climate, and the additional time this circumstance affords for labor, are all highly important inducements for the cultivation of these lands, and should be considered in deciding upon a system of tillage. ”

“ On ordinary farms, or wherever farming of any kind is carried out, the proportion of the land not actually cultivated will either be in grass or will revert naturally to grass in time if left alone, after having been cultivated.
Pasture land has always been an important part of the farm, but since the “era of cheap corn” set in its importance has been increased, and much more attention has been given to the study of the different species of grass, their characteristics, the improvement of a pasture generally, and the “laying down” of arable land into grass where tillage farming has not paid. ”

“ It is a rule with few exceptions that the absence of livestock on the farm is an index of gradual reduction in the productive power of the land. Generally speaking, the farmers who feed the most of their crops on the farm are maintaining fertility, and those who do not feed their crops on the farm have been making drafts upon the soil's stores of available plant-food that are evidenced in a reduction of yields. ”

“ Sales off the Farm.—The day is now here when the major portion of human food must be provided in grain and vegetables and fruit, and the demand for hay and grain for animals off the farm is very large. Fiber products likewise must be supplied. The draft upon the soil is heavy, but it must be good farm practice to supply bread and vegetables and fruit to the 70 per cent of our population that is not on farms. The great majority of farmers do not feed all their crops to livestock, and the amount of food-stuffs, for human beings and animals, that is now going off the farms is none too great. ”

“ But about 1850 even this custom disappeared, and now every holder of lands in the open fields cultivates them as he chooses, but they must be under some form of tillage as long as they remain open. But the tendency, observed by Arthur Young, for the larger owners of lands in the common fields to buy, sell and exchange strips with other owners with the object of getting some half-dozen acres in one continuous piece and then enclosing them, has continued up to the present day. Such enclosures are laid down in grass, and in this way the area of the open fields has gradually been reduced. ”