the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries (it is usually asserted) escaped enclosure
altogether until the need for better agriculture in the eighteenth
century ushered in the so-called second enclosure movement, which did
not involve the conversion of tilled land to pasture. This alleged
check in the progress of the enclosure movement is inferred from the
fact that new land, and even some of the land formerly withdrawn from
the common-fields to be converted to pasture, was being tilled. This
is interpreted by economic historians as evidence that arable land
was no longer being converted to pasture. We are told by Meredith, for
instance, that "Moneyed men at the end of Elizabeth's reign were
beginning to find it profitable to sink money in arable farming, a
fact which points to the conclusion that there was no longer any
differential advantage in sheep-raising."[22] Cunningham is also of
the opinion that "So far as such a movement can be definitely dated,
it may be said that enclosure for the sake of increasing sheep-farming
almost entirely ceased with the reign of Elizabeth."[23] Innes gives
as the cause of this supposed check in the reduction of arable land to
pasture that "The expansion of pasturage appears to have reached the
limit beyond which it would have ceased to be profitable."[24] It is
indeed reasonable that the high prices which are supposed to have been
the cause of the sudden increase in wool production should be
gradually lowered as the supply increased, and that thus the
inducement to the conversion of arable to pasture would in time
disappear. The theory that the enclosure movement was due to an
increase in the price of wool would be seriously weakened if the
movement continued for a time longer than that required to bring about
an adjustment of the supply to the increased demand.

For the sake of consistency, then, this point in the account of the
enclosure movement is necessary. It would follow naturally from the
original explanation of the movement as the response to an increased
demand for wool, as reflected in high prices. With the decrease in
prices to be expected as the supply increased, the incentive for
converting arable to pasture would be removed. Historians sometimes
speak of other considerations which might have contributed to the
cessation of the enclosure movement. Ashley, for instance, suggests
that landowners found that to "devote their lands continuously to
sheep-breeding did not turn ou