r. Russell on soil fertility--Insufficient manure--Statistical
indications of yield--Compulsory land-holding--Desertion of
villains--Commutation of services on terms advantageous to serf--Low
rent obtained when bond land was leased--Remission of
services--Changes due to economic need, not desired for improved
social status--Poverty of villains--Cultivation of demesne
unprofitable.

CHAPTER III
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE OPEN FIELDS 73
Growing irregularity of holdings--Consolidation of holdings--Turf
boundaries plowed under--Lea land--Restoration of fertility--Enclosure
by tenants--Land used alternately as pasture and arable--Summary of
changes.

CHAPTER IV
ENCLOSURE FOR SHEEP PASTURE 86
Enclosure by small tenants difficult--Open-field tenants
unprofitable--Low rents--Neglect of land--High cost of
living--Enclosure even of demesne a hardship to small
holders--Intermixture of holdings a reason for dispossessing
tenants--Higher rents from enclosed land another reason--Poverty of
tenants where no enclosures were made--Exhaustion of open fields
recognised by Parliament--Restoration of fertility and reconversion to
tillage--New forage crops in eighteenth century--Recapitulation and
conclusion.

INDEX 109

INTRODUCTION

The enclosure movement--the process by which the common-field system
was broken down and replaced by a system of unrestricted private
use--involved economic and social changes which make it one of the
important subjects in English economic history. When it began, the
arable fields of a community lay divided in a multitude of strips
separated from each other only by borders of unplowed turf. Each
landholder was in possession of a number of these strips, widely
separated from each other, and scattered all over the open fields, so
that he had a share in each of the various grades of land.[1] But his
private use of the land was restricted to the period when it was being
prepared for crop or was under crop. After harvest the land was grazed
in common by the village flocks; and each year a half or a third of
the land was not plowed at all, but lay fallow and formed part of the
common pasture. Under this system there was no opportunity for
individual initiative in varying the rotation of cr