Two Buckinghamshire parishes underwent experiences which have been wrongly cited as typical of the inconveniences of common fields, whereas they are rather instances of the lawless conduct of village bullies. Steeple Claydon had 2500 acres of common field, on which the customary course was one crop and a fallow. “About fourteen years ago” (i.e., about 1779) “the proprietors came to an agreement to have two crops and a fallow, but before the expiration of ten years one of the farmers broke through the agreement, and turned in his cattle upon the crops of beans, oats and barley, in which plan he was soon followed by the rest.”[20] The agreement, if that of a three-fourths majority (see [below]), was legally binding on all owners and occupiers, and the first farmer was liable to the same pains and penalties as if he had turned his cattle into crops standing on enclosed fields belonging to another farm. Possibly, however, the crops were a failure, and feeding them off with cattle was as good a way of dealing with them as another.

A still more difficult case to understand is that of Wendon (3000 acres common field). It is reported as follows:—“About fourteen years ago the parishioners came to an agreement and obtained an Act to lay the small pieces of land together.... When the division took place, the balks were of necessity ploughed up, by which a great portion of the sheep pasture was destroyed.[21] It then became expedient, and it was agreed upon at public vestry, to sow clover and turnips as a succedaneum for the balks. Two years since, one of the farmers, occupying 16 acres of these common fields, procured in the month of May a large flock of lean sheep, which he turned on the clover crops; being then nearly in bloom, the greater part of which they devoured.”

Of Oxfordshire we are told “the present course of husbandry is so various, particularly in the open fields, that to treat of all the different ways of management would render this report too voluminous. It may suffice generally to remark that some fields are in the course of one crop and fallow, others of two, and a few of three crops and a fallow. In divers unenclosed parishes the same rotation prevails over the whole of the open fields; but in others, the more homeward or bettermost land is oftener cropped, or sometimes cropped every year.”[22] Where one crop and a fallow was the custom the crop might be wheat, barley or oats; and sometimes tares were sown on the fallow field and cut green. The three and four-field systems prevalent were those described above.

In Berkshire a six-year course, evidently evolved from an older three-years course, was found:—(1), wheat; (2), barley; (3), oats, with seeds; (4), clover, mowed, and then grazed upon in common; (5), oats or barley; (6), fallow.

An agreement to withhold turning out stock during the time in which a field was commonable by ancient custom, in order that turnips, vetches, etc., might be grown, was practised, and termed “hitching the fields.”[23] We get the same expression for Wiltshire, where a part of a field set aside for vetches, peas, beans, turnips, or potatoes was called a “hookland” or “hitchland” field.[24] In Wiltshire customs similar to these described as surviving recently in Stratton and Grimstone were prevalent; clover was generally substituted for fallow, and was partly mowed for the individual benefit of particular occupiers, and partly fed upon by the village flock. The following systems are reported:—

(a) First, wheat; second, barley with clover; third, clover part mowed, part fed.