By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters[218], though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:—
The countrie inclosed I praise
the tother delighteth me not,
There swineherd that keepeth the hog
there neetherd with cur and his horne,
There shepherd with whistle and dog
be fence to the medowe and corne,
There horse being tide on a balke
is readie with theefe for to walke,
Where all things in common doth reste
corne field with the pasture and meade,
Tho' common ye do for the best
yet what doth it stand ye in steade?
More plentie of mutton and beefe
corne butter and cheese of the best
More wealth any where (to be briefe)
more people, more handsome and prest (neat.)
Where find ye? (go search any coaste)
than there where enclosure is most.
More work for the labouring man
as well in the towne as the fielde.
For commons these commoners crie
inclosing they may not abide,
Yet some be not able to bie
a cow with her calf by her side.
Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke,
But thievishly loiter and lurke.
What footpaths are made and how brode
Annoiance too much to be borne,
With horse and with cattle what rode
is made thorowe erie man's come.
But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have traded on the necessity of the poor farmer to sell at Michaelmas in order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent, and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one could carry corn from one part of England to another without a licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it is extinct to-day.
Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots, cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,[219] and all kinds of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie.'[220]
'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts, &c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches, figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in noblemen's orchards. I have seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing here, besides other strange trees.'[221]
As a proof of the growth of grass in proportion to tillage between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several examples,[222] of which the following are significant:—
| Arable. | Grass. | |
| acres. | acres. | |
| 1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had | 160 | 60 |
| 1354. a Norfolk manor | 300 | 59 |
| 1395. 2 messuages in Warwickshire | 400 | 60 |
| 1560. 2 messuages in Warwickshire | 600 | 660 |
| 1567. a Norfolk estate | 200 | 400 |
| 1569. " manor | 60 | 60 |
'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'[223] So thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517 a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays, conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27 Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness; houses and townships were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:
'The towns go down, the land decays,
Of corn-fields plain lays,
Great men maketh nowadays
A sheepcot of the church',
said a contemporary ballad.