[92] Bedford Report, 1808, p. 235.
[93] Annual Register, 1799, Chron., p. 27.
[94] Eden, 1. Preface, p. xviii.
[95] Bedford Report, p. 249. Cf. writer in Appendix of Report on Middlesex, pp. 507–15, ‘a gentleman of the least sensibility would rather suffer his residence to continue surrounded by marshes and bogs, than take the lead in what may be deemed an obnoxious measure.’ This same writer urges, that the unpopularity of enclosures would be overcome were care taken ‘to place the inferior orders of mankind—the cottager and industrious poor—in such a situation, with regard to inclosures, that they should certainly have some share secured to them, and be treated with a gentle hand. Keep all in temper—let no rights be now disputed.... It is far more easy to prevent a clamour than to stop it when once it is raised. Those who are acquainted with the business of inclosure must know that there are more than four-fifths of the inhabitants in most neighbourhoods who are generally left out of the bill for want of property, and therefore cannot possibly claim any part thereof.’
[96] Vol. xx. p. 456.
[97] Vol. xxiv. p. 543.
[98] The Appropriation and Enclosure of Commonable and Intermixed Lands, 1801.
[99] ‘Allow to the cottager a little land about his dwelling for keeping a cow, for planting potatoes, for raising flax or hemp. 2ndly, Convert the waste lands of the kingdom into small arable farms, a certain quantity every year, to be let on favourable terms to industrious families. 3rdly, Restrain the engrossment and over-enlargement of farms. The propriety of those measures cannot, I think, be questioned.’—The Case of Labourers in Husbandry, p. 103.
[100] Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 52.
[101] This scheme marks a great advance on an earlier scheme which Young published in the first volume of the Annals of Agriculture. He then proposed that public money should be spent in settling cottagers or soldiers on the waste, giving them their holding free of rent and tithes for three lives, at the end of which time the land they had redeemed was to revert to its original owners.