With regard to the effect of this on population, he names in one passage[45] Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire perhaps, as containing “an infinitely greater proportion of common fields, while Northumberland, Westmoreland and Yorkshire exceed in moors, heaths and commons,” and in another he mentions Oxfordshire, Buckingham, Northamptonshire and part of Leicester as counties in which rich arable land would be the main subject of an Enclosure Act. A typical parish in this district might include 1000 acres of rich arable land, 500 acres of inferior arable, 500 acres of stinted common, with no heath or waste. Before enclosure it would provide employment for 30¼ labouring families according to the table, after enclosure to 15⅝. If eight such parishes were enclosed, 117 families would be sent adrift—families of poor and ignorant labourers, looking for new homes under all the disabilities and difficulties springing from Acts of Settlement, and a Poor Law administration based on the assumption that those who wander from their native place are all that is implied in the words “vagrants” and “vagabonds.” Not eight, but a hundred and twenty-six Acts for enclosing common fields were passed for the four counties he names in the ten years 1762–1772, immediately preceding the publication of this pamphlet. Assuming the accuracy of the “Country Gentleman’s” statement, this would mean that some 1800 odd families, comprising about 9000 individuals, would, in consequence of enclosure, be sent adrift in that short period in the four counties. The quotations given below from three other authors, indicate that even this was an under-statement. The process continued without intermission for many years afterwards.
- [45] Page 43.
A specially interesting tract, published in 1786, entitled “Thoughts on Inclosures, by a Country Farmer,” gives a detailed account of the results of one case of enclosure. The locality is not named, but it is pretty clear that it was within this Midland country in which enclosure was attended by the conversion of arable to pasture.
On the general question the writer says:—“To obtain an Act of Parliament to inclose a common field, two witnesses are produced, to swear that the lands thereof, in their present state, are not worth occupying, though at the same time they are lands of the best soil in the kingdom, and produce corn in the greatest abundance, and of the best quality. And by inclosing such lands, they are generally prevented from producing any corn at all, as the landowner converts twenty small farms into about four large ones, and at the same time the tenants of those large farms are tied down in their leases not to plough any of the premises, so lett to farm,[46] by which means of several hundred villages, that forty years ago contained between four and five hundred inhabitants, very few will now be found to exceed eighty, and some not half that number; nay some contain only one poor decripid man or woman, housed by the occupiers of lands who live in another parish, to prevent them being obliged to pay towards the support of the poor who live in the next parish” (p. 2).
The profit of enclosing, he maintains, was dependent upon simultaneous conversion into pasture, for “In some places the lands inclosed do not answer the ends of pasturage, and in that case tillage is still to be pursued; because the rents cannot be raised so high as in respect of pasturage, therefore the landowner has not the advantage as in case the land turns out fit for pasturage, and is oftener the loser by that proceeding than the gainer.”[46]
- [46] Arthur Young (“Eastern Tour,” 1771, p. 96) remarks that in Leicestershire “Landlords in general will not allow an inch to be ploughed on grazing farms.”
The particular enclosure he cites is that of a parish enclosed about forty years previously. Before enclosure it contained eighty-two houses, of which twenty were small farms and forty-two were cottages with common rights. It had 1800 acres of common field arable, 200 acres of rich common cow pasture, and 200 acres of meadow, commonable after hay harvest. The common pasture fed two hundred milch cows and sixty dry ones till hay harvest, at which time they were turned into the meadows, and their place taken by about one hundred horses. Twelve hundred sheep were fed on the stubbles.
The gross produce of the parish before enclosure he values as follows:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,100 quarters of wheat at 28s. per quarter | 1,540 | 0 | 0 |
| 1,200 quarters of barley at 16s. per quarter | 960 | 0 | 0 |
| 900 quarters of beans at 15s. per quarter | 675 | 0 | 0 |
| 250 todds of wool at 16s. per todd | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| 600 lambs at 10s. each | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| 5,000 lbs. of cheese at 1½d. per lb. | 31 | 5 | 0 |
| 6,000 lbs. of butter at 5d. per lb. | 125 | 0 | 0 |
| 100 calves at 20s. each | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| 150 pigs at 12s. each | 90 | 0 | 0 |
| Poultry and eggs | 80 | 0 | 0 |
| £4,101 | 5 | 0 |
The quantities estimated are eminently reasonable, and in harmony with other statements available with regard to the produce of the common fields of the Midlands; the prices also are clearly not over-stated.