Land enclosure

“ What we have, then, to ask is whether the priority of enclosure in the western counties is to be attributed entirely to the fact of their being devoted more to grass and less to tillage, or whether there was some difference in the primitive village community of the west which caused cultivated land to pass more easily into the condition of exclusive ownership and separate use. ”

“ Far more important from a broad national point of view, is the enclosure of common fields—the enclosure, that is, of land previously cultivated according to a system which did not involve the separation of one holding from another by any tangible barrier. Enclosure of this sort, when suddenly effected, as by a Private Act of Enclosure, is rightly termed the extinction of a village community. ”

“ Enclosure has been effected by simply enclosing the strips of arable land in the open field as they are. The fact that no common rights existed over the Field, supposing this always to have been the case, would have made such enclosure almost a matter of indifference to the other occupiers; and the motive, no doubt, would be the desire to lay the strip down in pasture. The whole field is known to the villagers as 252“the tillage land.” ”

“ These Enclosure Acts appear as petitions; they are usually in the names of the lord of the manor, the parson of the parish, and a greater or less number of the holders of the lands. For now enclosure concerns the "open fields." It is represented that the "strip system" is very inconvenient—the land being so "scattered." It would be for the benefit of all if the lands were enclosed and divided among the holders—that is, if each holder got his share in one piece. This, it is added, will do away with "the half-year's close, and the rights of common and sheep-walks." ”

“ For our purposes, also, the notice of enclosure of arable land for pasture on one group of manors in the early thirteenth century is important as an indication that the fundamental cause of the enclosure movement was at work long before the Black Death, which is usually taken as the event in which the movement had its beginning. ”

“ The landowners seem to have been reluctant to cause hardship and to have left the open-field tenants undisturbed as far as possible, contenting themselves with the enclosure and conversion of small plots of land. ”

“ Besides this plow land, there was a definite area of grazing land, known as the commons. With the coming of enclosures this open field system was abolished. (By the term ‘enclosure’ is meant that all the strips of any one man scattered throughout the holdings of the village were given to him in equivalent in a single, consolidated acreage, which he had to fence, ditch, etc. Or again, the term applies to a large district, as very frequently the commons, that was fenced in for the wealthy landowner’s sheep-pens.) ”

“ Raising Hedges and sinking ditches may indeed employ several hands for a year, or hardly so long, but when that is once over, the work is at an end.... Owners of inclosed Lands, if they have but a little corn to get in, are already forced to send several miles to open field parishes for Harvest men.”
Six open field farms, averaging 150 acres each, and the little holdings of twelve cottagers, would be let together, after enclosure, as one grazing farm, and the total rent thus be raised from £300 to £600. But whereas one acre of arable land would previously have produced 20 bushels at 3s. ”

“ Agriculturally, enclosure of arable land in the midst of unenclosed arable land is a preliminary step to its conversion into pasture, the hedge is erected to keep animals in; enclosure of land in the midst of open common pasture is a preliminary step to tillage, the hedge keeps animals out. ”

“ The consequence is that this great field of 500 acres still remains open and unenclosed; the land is specially fertile, there are an exceptionally large number of small properties in it, and it is all kept under tillage. I am informed that one of the first acts of the Weston Zoyland Parish Council, when, on coming into existence, it took over the custody of the parish maps and documents, was to re-define the roads that passed through the field, in accordance with the Commissioners’ map and award. ”

“ In 1892, when application was made to the Board of Agriculture, which now represents the Enclosure Commissioners of the General Enclosure Act of 1845, there were in the two hamlets, out of a total area of 4976 acres, 2,425 acres of common arable fields, 815 acres of common pastures and meadows, and 370 acres of commonable waste, and only about 1300 acres enclosed. In Laxton the commonable land is less than half the area of the parish. The greater amount of old enclosure in Laxton has had its effect on the distribution of the population. There are some, though very few, outlying farmhouses. ”

“ Low rents, pauperism, and abandonment of land are facts which indicate declining productivity of the soil, and statistical records of the harvests reaped are not [Pg 17/173] needed when statutes, proclamations, and books of husbandry describe the exhausted condition of the common fields. The fact that the enclosure movement continued vigorously in the seventeenth century is conclusively established, and when this fact is known the impossibility of estimating the comparative rate of progress of the movement in the preceding century is of no importance. ”

“ In their little inclosures they grow turnips, barley, wheat, and a little hemp." Mr Styleman also assigned to the poor of the whole parish, "100 acres of common in one inclosure for cutting turf; each house under 40s. a year rent has a right to cut 3000 flag (turf) , a quantity sufficient for the winter's firing." This was in lieu of the old practice of cutting whins for firing over the whole extent of open fields—a practice "destructive of much land." ”

“ South of its unenclosed limits there flows a rapid-running stream, down in whose barren valley are placed the long unsightly wooden stables, the big square corrals for quartermaster's stock, the huge stacks of hay and straw, and vast piles of cord-wood. Farther east along this tortuous stream, and on its left bank, too, midway between fort and city, is another big brown enclosure, in which are dozens of sheds and storehouses. ”

“ Under the Inclosure Act of 1845 provision was made for the allotment of a part of the land to be inclosed for field gardens for the labouring Rural commons. poor, and for recreation. But those who were interested in effecting an inclosure often convinced the inclosure commissioners that for some reason such allotments would be useless. To such an extent did the reservation of such allotments become discredited that, in 1869, the commission proposed to parliament the inclosure of 13,000 acres, with the reservation of only one acre for recreation, and none at all for field gardens. ”

“ The proprietor, when there is appearance of a natural growth should select such for enclosure, and on such an estate we place this at 500 acres. Only those who have practical knowledge and experience in the matter, can realise the extraordinary vitality of the seeds of birch, fir, oak, and others, over a great part of the Highlands. Nothing is required over thousands upon thousands of acres, but simple enclosure. ”

“ By this time (1842) some of the enclosures made in 1814 were become fit for being thrown open, the young trees having grown up sufficiently, and the following Commissioners, viz., Lord Lincoln, A. Milne, C. Gore, Sir T. Crawley, J. Pyrke, M. Colchester, C. Bathurst, E. Machen, P. J. Ducarel, J. F. Brickdale, Esqrs., proceeded to authorize the laying open of 163 acres 2 roods 24 poles in Little Stapledge and Birchwood, directing that an equal quantity of land should be added to the Acorn Patch and the Bourts. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And there are nearly eighty million acres of land that lie under swamps or subject to periodical overflow or too wet for anything but grazing, which it is perfectly feasible to drain and protect and redeem. ”

“ To revert to the parallel of the disposition of land made by the owner of an estate, who certainly would not place his kitchen - garden in the loveliest part of his park, do not let the Nation surrender forest or hillside, but, preserving them intact, apportion for purposes of cultivation the less beautiful, flatter, and probably more productive ground. Let the public watch how many of the schemes brought forward relate to regulation, not inclosure. ”

“ When, however, the survey was made, change had begun, though not in the direction of enclosure, of which there was still little. Conversion to meadow had proceeded without it: nearly all the parcels of the various tenants in East field and West field are said to have been meadow; arable still predominated only in Middle field, and even there it had begun to yield. [102]
At Westwick, Whorlton, Bolam and Willington in Durham, and at Welford, Northamptonshire, a similar transformation had taken place. ”

“ The location of the sump should be at or about the lowest level of the ground well away from any wall or the dock area, and on the line of the greatest flow of the land waters or natural watercourse, thus, dealing with them before they reach the site of the works.
In loose and almost all earth the foundations should be covered up quickly so as to preserve the natural condition of the soil. It is also important to offer every possible support to the earth to prevent initial movement, and slight assistance may afford the required strength. ”

“ Thirdly, a mere comparison of the relative prices of grazing and agricultural products cannot explain the fact that conversion of open-field land to pasture continued throughout the seventeenth century in spite of prices which made it profitable for landowners at the same time to convert a large amount of grass-land to tillage, including enclosures which had formerly been taken from the common fields. ”

“ We put imaginary wheels under that imaginary home of ours and kept it traveling all over the farm. The trouble with us was we had too much latitude. With half an acre of land at our disposal, we should have been circumscribed by boundary lines. On half an acre you have to be reasonably definite about where you are going to build; slide too far one way or the other, and you are committing trespass, and litigation ensues. But we had sixty acres from which to pick and to choose—sixty acres, with desirable sites scattered all over the tract. ”

“ It is seldom that a small settlement can do this successfully. I have been pleased with the suggestions offered by President Hyde in relation to the better cultivation of the soil; for when we go to the expense of taking out water, of keeping up dams, making requisite canals, repairing tunnels and smaller ditches and water sects, it would seem really sound policy that every foot of land thus watered, in order to make it effective, should be cultivated in the best possible manner. ”

“ If, therefore, we give the Commissioners for the Inclosure credit for a reasonable degree of judgment and discretion, it is within this part of the Forest, so well calculated for the growth of timber, that they would undoubtedly appropriate the 2,000 acres to be inclosed as a nursery for that purpose, and for which it would be a situation peculiarly advantageous, on account of its easy communication with water-carriage and the dock-yard at Woolwich. ”

“ Now, supposing 100 p. 13acres to be so allotted, I would ask, if there are not twenty houses in the parish of Woodford, the owners of which would be glad to have an addition of five acres of contiguous waste inclosed; and if there are not, in every other parish within the Forest, proprietors of land who would be glad to have such a partial inclosure as would afford them an addition of a like quantity of land. ”

“ The enclosure of waste for tillage and the enclosure of arable for pasture were economically inter-dependent.
The gross agricultural produce of the country as a whole was therefore increased by common field enclosure.
The effect upon urban industries was also great. The greater the local depopulation in rural districts produced by enclosure, the greater the supply of needy labourers of industrious habits and robust physique drafted to the growing industrial towns. ”

“ One hundred and sixty acres of fairly rich and well-watered soil, or a much smaller amount of irrigated land, may keep a family in plenty, whereas no one could get a living from one hundred and sixty acres of dry pasture land capable of supporting at the outside only one head of cattle to every ten acres. In the past great tracts of the public domain have been fenced in by persons having no title thereto, in direct defiance of the law forbidding the maintenance or construction of any such unlawful inclosure of public land. ”

“ There was a great quantity of young timber, particularly birch, in this enclosure, which is nearly all destroyed in consequence of the fences being pulled down.”
“Serridge Enclosure was made about twelve years ago. It contained 409 acres 3 roods 20 poles, and was fenced with a dry stone wall, of which but little remains, being quite open in many parts; there are no young trees of any sort, and but few old trees.” ”