Up to this point, the account is consistent. If the price of wool was rising more rapidly than that of grain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (in spite of the statistical evidence to the contrary) it is reasonable that the differential advantage in grazing should finally come to an end when a new balance between tillage and grazing was established. It is not even surprising that the conversion of arable to pasture should have continued beyond the proper point, and that a contrary movement should set in. Bacon, in 1592, remarked that men had of late been enticed by the good yield of corn and the increased freedom of export to "break up more ground and convert it to tillage than all the penal laws for that purpose made and enacted could ever by compulsion effect."[[27]] In 1650 Lord Monson plowed up 100 acres of Grafton Park, which had formerly been pasture, and there are many other records showing a tendency to convert pasture to arable in the seventeenth century.[[28]] It is true that men were able to make a profit from agriculture by the end of the sixteenth century. But there is one difficulty which has been overlooked: the withdrawal from agriculture of common-field land did not cease. The protests against depopulating enclosure continue, and government reports and surveys show that enclosure for pasture was proceeding at as rapid a rate as in the sixteenth century. Miss Leonard's article on "Inclosure of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century"[[29]] contains a mass of evidence which is conclusive. A few quotations will indicate its character:
"In Leicestershire the enclosures of Cottesbach in 1602, of Enderby about 1605, of Thornby about 1616, were all accomplished by a lessening of the land under the plough. Moore, writing in 1656, says: 'Surely they may make men as soon believe there is no sun in the firmament as that usually depopulation and decay of tillage will not follow inclosure in our inland countyes.'" (p. 117). Letters from the Council were written in 1630 complaining of "'enclosures and convercons tending as they generallie doe unto depopulation.... There appeares many great inclosures ... all wch are or are lyke to turne to the conversion of much ground from errable to pasture and be very hurtfull to the commonwealth.... We well know wth all what ye consequence will be, and in conclusion all turne to depopulation!'" (p. 128). Forster, writing in 1664, says, "there hath been of late years divers whole lordships and towns enclosed and their earable land converted into pasture!" (p. 142).
Frequently the same proprietor in the same year plowed up pasture land for corn and laid arable to pasture. Tawney cites a case in which ninety-five acres of ancient pasture were brought under cultivation while thirty-five acres of arable were laid to grass.[[30]] In 1630 the Countess of Westmoreland enclosed and converted arable, but tilled other land instead.[[31]] The enclosure movement, then, did not end at the time when it is usually thought to have ended. Since it is difficult to suppose that the price of wool could have been advancing constantly throughout two centuries, without causing such a readjustment in the use of land that no further withdrawal of land from tillage for pasture would be necessary, the continuance of the conversion of arable to pasture in the seventeenth century throws suspicion upon the whole explanation of the enclosure movement as due to the increased demand for wool.
Miss Leonard, indeed, advances the hypothesis that the price of wool ceased to be the cause of enclosure during the seventeenth century, but that other price changes had the same effect:
The increase in pasture in the sixteenth century was rendered profitable by the rapid increase in the price of wool, but, in the seventeenth century, this cause ceases to operate. The change to pasture, however, continued, partly owing to a great rise in the price of cattle, and partly because the increase in wages made it less profitable to employ the greater number of men necessary for tilling the fields.[[32]]
The assumption that wages and the price of cattle advanced sufficiently in the seventeenth century to account for the change to pasture are no better justified than the assumption of the rapid rise in the price of wool in the sixteenth century. If the price of meat and dairy products rose in the seventeenth century, so did the price of grain and other foods. The relative rate of increase is the only point significant for the present discussion. No statistics are available to show whether the price of cattle rose more rapidly than that of grain, and the evidence afforded by the reduction of arable land to pasture is counterbalanced by the equally well-established fact that much pasture land was plowed and planted in this period. It is equally probable on the basis of this evidence that the prices of wheat and barley advanced more rapidly than those of meat and butter and cheese. The same difficulty is met in the suggestion that the increase in pasturage was due partly to higher wages for farm labor. The extension of tillage over much land formerly laid to pasture as well as that which had never been plowed at all is sufficient cause for doubting a prohibitive increase in wages. Moreover, in modern times, wages lag in general rise of prices. Unless conclusive evidence is presented to show that this was not the case in the seventeenth century, it must be assumed to be inherently probable that the increased wages of the time were more than offset by the rapidly advancing prices.
During the seventeenth century, then, when it is admitted that the high price of wool was not the cause which induced landowners to convert arable to pasture, it cannot be shown that the high price of cattle or exorbitant wages will account for the withdrawal of land from cultivation. This is an important point, for historians frequently support their main contention with regard to the enclosure movement (i. e., that it was caused by an increase in the price of wool), by the statement that increasing wages made landlords abandon tillage for sheep-farming, with its smaller labor charges. It has been shown that the conversion of arable to pasture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries cannot be explained by the price of wool, but it may still be urged that agriculture was rendered unprofitable by high wages. Indeed, it is usually stated that the withdrawal of land from cultivation which took place in the fourteenth century was due to the scarcity of labor caused by the Black Death. In the fifteenth century population was reduced by the Wars of the Roses; and throughout the period under consideration, agriculture had to meet the competition of the growing town industries for labor. Is it not possible that these influences caused an exorbitant rise in wages which would alone account for the substitution of sheep-farming for tillage?
The obvious character of the enclosure movement makes it impossible to accept this hypothesis. The conversion of arable land to pasture was caused by no demand for higher wages, which made tillage unprofitable. The unemployment and pauperism caused by the enclosure of the open fields are notorious, and it is to these features of the enclosure movement that we owe the mass of literature on the subject. Enclosures called forth a storm of protest, because they took away the living of poor husbandry families. The acute distress undergone by those who were evicted from their holdings is sufficient indication of the difficulty of finding employment, and it is impossible that wages could remain at an exorbitant level when the enclosure of the lands of one open-field township made enough men homeless to supply any existing dearth of labor in all of the surrounding villages. If agriculture was unprofitable, it was not because laborers demanded excessive wages, but because of the low productivity of the land. The significance of contemporary complaints of high wages is missed if they are interpreted as an indication of an exorbitant increase in wages. The facts are, rather, that land was so unproductive that farmers could not afford to pay even a low wage.
If it were necessary to argue the point further, it could be pointed out that wages even in industry were not subject to that steady rise which would have to be assumed, if high wages are to furnish the explanation of the substitution of pasture for tillage from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth. The statistical data on this subject are fragmentary, but Thorold Rogers' calculations for the period 1540-1582 are significant. In this period wages rose 60 per cent above the average of the previous century and a half; but the market prices of farm produce rose 170 per cent.[[33]] The rise in wages was far from keeping pace with the rise in selling prices, and the displacement of agriculture for grazing at this time must be due to some cause other than the greater number of laborers needed in agriculture. If, during certain periods within the four centuries under consideration wages advanced more rapidly than the prices of produce (statistical information on this subject is lacking) the continuous withdrawal of land from tillage during periods when wages fell remains to be explained by some cause other than high wages. Nor can high wages account for the conversion of tilled land to pasture simultaneously with the conversion of pasture land to tillage in the seventeenth century.
If wages were exorbitantly high in the seventeenth century, and if this is the reason for the laying to pasture of so much arable, how could farmers afford to cultivate the large amount of fresh land which they were bringing under the plow? Is this accounted for not by any expectation of profit from this land but by the statutory requirement that no arable should be laid to pasture unless an equal amount of grass land were plowed in its stead? Pasture in excess of the legal requirements was plowed up, and persons who did not wish to convert any arable to pasture are found increasing their tilled land by bringing grass land under cultivation. The movement cannot be explained, therefore, merely on the basis of the husbandry statutes. Nor is the law itself to be dismissed without further examination, for in it we find the explicit statement that fresh land could be substituted for that then under cultivation, because common-field land was in many cases exhausted; it was therefore better to allow this to be laid to grass while better land was cultivated in its place.[[34]] Here then, is the simple explanation of the whole problem. The land which was converted from arable to pasture was worn out; but there was fresh land available for tillage, and some of this was brought under cultivation.