ithout enclosure and, unless an award
was made by agreement, that meant a large initial expense, which was
followed by the expense of actually enclosing the land. These expenses
were often borne by the landlords. The small squires and yeomen who
farmed their own land had neither the intelligence of the large farmers
nor the money to spend on improvements, and both classes virtually
disappeared. Nor could the small farmer either keep his place or take
advantage of the new system. If his holding was unaffected by enclosure,
the loss of domestic industries rendered him less able to pay his rent:
if it was to be enclosed, he found himself with a diminished income at
the very time when he most needed money; and if he managed to keep his
land for a while, he was ruined by some violent fluctuation in the price
of corn. Sooner or later he sank into the labouring class. The enormous
profits of the large farmers did not continue, for about 1780 rents
began to rise. Still the cultivation of good arable land remained highly
profitable, if the farmer had capital enough to meet fluctuations of
price. But war prices and parliamentary encouragement led farmers to
cultivate inferior land; their profits diminished in proportion to the
cost of cultivation, and though the supply of food was increased, its
price was kept up. A sudden fall in prices would send the land back to
its original wild state and was likely enough to ruin the farmer.

Although enclosure was encouraged by parliament with the view of
benefiting the mass of the people by making bread cheaper, it was far
more often than not injurious to the labourer. In many cases commons
were enclosed without adequate compensation to the poorer commoners, who
were deprived of the means of keeping a cow or geese or of the right of
cutting turf for fuel. Some received no allotment because they failed to
prove their claims, and others sold their allotments to wealthy farmers,
either because they were too small to keep a cow or because they could
not enclose them. Young, who strongly advocated enclosure, says that out
of thirty-seven parishes he found only twelve in which the position of
the poor had not been injured by the enclosure of commons, and laments
the disastrous effect of the change on the general condition of the
labouring class. The change was coincident with the decay not only of
domestic spinning, but also of other industries practised in villages,
for the large new-fashioned f