Agricultural improvements came first to enclosed land, which comprised about half of the agricultural land. In the 1733, Jethro Tull published a book about his 1701 invention of the seed-drill to first pulverize the soil for cultivation without manure and then to deposit seed at a uniform depth in regulated quantities and in rows instead of being thrown haphazardly. Also explained was the horse-hoe to stir the soil about the roots of the plants to preserve moisture, promote aeration, admit warmth, and destroy weeds. There were more horses than oxen in use now in the fields. The horse-hoe was first used by large independent farmers on enclosed land. Also invented was a threshing machine with a set of sticks to replace hand threshing with flails. Under-drainage as well as irrigation was practiced. Lord Townshend alternated turnips, grasses, and grain in his fields, and thus provided winter food for his cattle. The old forms of crop rotation with fallow periods were often displaced by legume-rotation field-grass agriculture. Independent farming gave rise to the improvement of breeds of livestock by selective breeding.
Enclosed land produced 26 bushels of grain compared to 18 bushels for common field land. It produced 9 pounds of sheep fleece compared to 3 1/2 pounds for common field land. Overall, soils were improved by being treated with clay, chalk, or lime. Artificial pasture was extended and there was increased use of clover, sainfoin, and rye-grass. Grain productivity was four times that of 1200. A fatted ox was 800 pounds compared to the former 400 pounds which it weighed from the 1300s to the 1600s. The fleece of sheep increased fourfold.
By statute of 1756, persons having rights of common in certain land may, by the major part in number and in value of each's tenement, enclose such land for planting and growth of timber or underwood.
Every village had a smith, carpenter, and miller. The larger villages also had a potter, a turner, a malster, a weaver, a tanner, and perhaps a mercer or grocer middleman. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and wagons. Ploughs had one, two, or no wheels. Poor farming families took up extra work in the villages such as making gloves, knitting stockings, or spinning yarn. Craftsmen still helped farmers at harvest time.
Much of the rural population was now dispersed over the countryside instead of being concentrated in villages because so many small holders had sold out due to enclosures of farm land, especially of common land and waste land. The rural working class lived in two room cottages, with low ceilings, small windows, and an earth floor. Patience was required for those willing to wait for an existing cottage in a village to be vacated. Most laborers did not marry unless and until they found a cottage. Ancient custom that a person could build a home for himself on waste land if he did it in one night was ceasing to be respected. Farmers usually preferred employing day-laborers than keeping servants. There were many migrant workers, mainly from Ireland, for the busy summer haymaking and harvesting.
The children of laborers and of small farmers had little schooling because they were needed for work. They scared the birds, weeded the fields, picked the stones, tended the poultry, set beans, combed the wool, and collected the rushes and dipped them in the tallow [sheep fat].
Farm people relied on well water or rain water collected in lead cisterns. A farmhouse fireplace had pots hung from iron rods. Saucepans sat on iron stands, which were stored above the mantel when not in use. Spits were rotated by pulleys powered by the upward current of hot air or by a mechanical device. Bacon was smoked in the chimney accessible by a staircase or upper floor.
There still existed customary freeholders, who owned their land subject to certain customary obligations to the lord of a manor.
The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on wages or paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:
"They hang the man and flog the woman
That steals a goose from off the common
But leave the greater criminal loose
That steals the common from the goose."