The Enclosure Act, of course, prevented the creation of any more cottage holdings. The fertility of the soil in these small holdings, Mr. Swain says, is enormously greater than that of the land, naturally similar, on the other side of the hedge. Usually the cottager gets a neighbouring farmer to plough half an acre of his holding for him, paying for this service in labour at harvest time; and keeps the rest, except the garden plot, under grass. The average size of the holding is about six acres; which is found sufficient for two cows, a heifer, a calf, several pigs, thirty fowls, and a dozen ducks. The produce supplies all the vegetables, fruit, milk, butter, eggs and bacon consumed by the family, and brings in the following money returns, on Mr. Swain’s calculations:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| One cow and one calf sold per annum (the other calf being reared to replace the cow sold) | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| Six pounds of butter per week, at 1s. per lb. | 15 | 12 | 0 |
| 1 pig, sold at a net profit of | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| 20 fowls | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| 400 eggs (allowing 600 for home consumption) | 1 | 8 | 0 |
| 35 | 15 | 0 |
As Mr. Swain writes from an intimate personal knowledge, I have no hesitation in accepting his statement as approximately accurate.
The injury to the cottagers does not end with the prevention of the creation of fresh holdings, and the transfer of the ownership of most of those already existing to the lord of the manor. For the landlord, managing his estate in the ordinary way, through the intermediaries of steward and agent, is almost invariably led into merging such small holdings into larger farms, in spite of the high rents which would often be gladly paid.
It will be seen that these two cases are in the nature of things typical. Similar hardships may be regarded as the almost inevitable effect of any enclosure which included any considerable quantity of waste land; and if the enclosure is necessary or highly desirable, some compensating advantages ought to be provided for the inhabitants as such. The smallness of such provision between 1845 and 1875 is very significant. And it makes one seriously doubt whether in their zeal for furthering improved culture, the Commissioners were as considerate as was desirable to the cottager who had a legal common right. But on that point we can apply no statistical test.
If we turn from enclosures since 1845 to enclosures before, we have a verdict from the old Board of Agriculture in its General Report on Enclosures published in 1808, which, so far as it is biassed, is biassed entirely in favour of enclosure. It says: “The benefit (of enclosure) in this case (to the poor) is by no means unmixed.”
The loss of fuel is declared to be the chief injury; and besides, “In some cases many cows had been kept without a legal right, and nothing had been given for the practice.”
“In other cases, where allotments were assigned, the cottagers could not pay the expense of the measure, and were forced to sell their allotments.”
“In others they kept cows by right of hiring their cottages, or common rights, and the land going, of course, to their proprietor, was added to the farms, and the poor sold their cows. This is a very common case.”[63]
- [63] “General Report on Enclosures,” pp. 12, 13.