poor relief, offered a gold medal for the most satisfactory account of
the best means of supporting cows on poor land, in a method applicable
to cottagers.[571] Young recommended that in the case of extensive
wastes every cottage on enclosure should be secured sufficient land on
which to keep a cow, the land to be inalienable from the cottage and
the ownership vested in the parish.

Lord Winchelsea[572] urged that a good garden should always go with a
cottage, and set the example himself, one which has been generally
followed in England by the greater landlords with much success. As may
be imagined, these schemes or others similar to them were put into
effect by the conscientious and energetic, but not by the apathetic
and careless. Further, an Act was passed in the fifty-ninth year of
George III, which enabled parishes to lease or buy 20 acres of land
for the employment of their poor.

In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the commons was
often worth very little. Let one man, it was said in 1795, put a cow
on a common in spring for nothing, and let another pay a farmer 1s.
6d. a week to keep a cow of equal value on enclosed land. When both
are driven to market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will
more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk meanwhile
has been much superior.

The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the great increase in
the weight of cattle not only to the improved methods of breeding, but
to their being fed on good enclosed lands instead of wastes and
commons.[573] Even when commons were stinted they were in general
overstocked, while disease was always being spread with enormous loss
to the commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights,
often crowded out the smaller.

There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 'squatters' on
commons who had seized and occupied land without any legal title. As a
rule, if these people had been in possession twenty-one years their
title was respected; if not, no regard was very justly paid to them on
enclosure, and they were deprived of what they had seized.

Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height; he was a competent and
accurate observer, and this is his picture of the 'commoner':[574]
'The advantages which cottagers and poor people derive from commons
and wastes are rather apparent than real; instead of sticking
regularly to labour they waste their time in picking up a few dry
sticks or