ress. By the statute of Merton, in the 20th of Henry III., the lord
is permitted to approve, that is, to inclose the waste lands of his
manor, provided he leave sufficient common of pasture for the
freeholders. Higden, a writer who lived about the time of Richard II.,
says, in reference to the number of hydes and vills of England at the
Conquest, that by clearing of woods, and ploughing up wastes, there were
many more of each in his age than formerly.[700] And it might be easily
presumed, independently of proof, that woods were cleared, marshes
drained, and wastes brought into tillage, during the long period that
the house of Plantagenet sat on the throne. From manerial surveys indeed
and similar instruments, it appears that in some places there was nearly
as much ground cultivated in the reign of Edward III. as at the present
day. The condition of different counties however was very far from being
alike, and in general the northern and western parts of England were the
most backward.[701]

The culture of arable land was very imperfect. Fleta remarks, in the
reign of Edward I. or II., that unless an acre yielded more than six
bushels of corn, the farmer would be a loser, and the land yield no
rent.[702] And Sir John Cullum, from very minute accounts, has
calculated that nine or ten bushels were a full average crop on an acre
of wheat. An amazing excess of tillage accompanied, and partly, I
suppose, produced this imperfect cultivation. In Hawsted, for example,
under Edward I., there were thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of
arable, and only forty-five of meadow ground. A similar disproportion
occurs almost invariably in every account we possess.[703] This seems
inconsistent with the low price of cattle. But we must recollect, that
the common pasture, often the most extensive part of a manor, is not
included, at least by any specific measurement, in these surveys. The
rent of land differed of course materially; sixpence an acre seems to
have been about the average for arable land in the thirteenth
century,[704] though meadow was at double or treble that sum. But the
landlords were naturally solicitous to augment a revenue that became
more and more inadequate to their luxuries. They grew attentive to
agricultural concerns, and perceived that a high rate of produce,
against which their less enlightened ancestors had been used to clamour,
would bring much more into their coffers than it took away. The
exportation of corn ha