AGRICULTURE IN OPEN FIELD PARISHES A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
[Illustration: ENCLOSURE OF COMMON FIELDS BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
Map of England and Wales showing land enclosed:
before the General Enclosure Act of 1801.
between 1802 and 1845.
under General Enclosure Act of 1845.
Scale 1:5,000,000 or 1 inch = 79 Stat. miles.]
A glance at the accompanying Enclosure Map of England will indicate
the importance of common fields in the social life of rural England at
certain dates. It was prepared in the following manner: On the Ordnance
County diagrams each parish which had an Enclosure Act by which common
field arable was enclosed was coloured; if the Act was passed between
1700 and 1801 it was coloured yellow; if passed after the general
Enclosure Act of 1801 and before that of 1845, it was coloured green;
if after 1845, purple. A map of England was drawn summarising the
results of the county maps. On this _at least_ all purple patches
showed parishes which possessed open field arable in 1845; _at least_
all the green and purple area combined indicated parishes which had
open field arable in 1802; _at least_ all the coloured area had open
field arable in 1700. In the printed map these colours are represented
by three forms of shading. Of the unshaded area one can simply say
that the Enclosure Acts throw no light upon its agricultural history
so far as the land under tillage is concerned. To a very great extent
it was undoubtedly being enclosed otherwise than by Act of Parliament
simultaneously with the progress of Parliamentary enclosure, but to a
still greater extent it either never passed through the common field
system or was enclosed before 1700. This statement raises questions
which are dealt with below. For the present I have to deal with the
general history of those parishes which did pass through the common
field system.
The original Board of Agriculture, which was an association on similar
lines to those of the Royal Agricultural Society, but enjoying a grant
from the Treasury, was founded in 1793, with Arthur Young as secretary
and Sir John Sinclair as president. It immediately took in hand the
work of making an agricultural survey of Great Britain, county by
county. Some counties were surveyed several times, but the original
survey of England was completed in the years 1793 and 1794. William
Marshall, the ablest agricultural writer of the time, single-handed
accomplished an agricultural survey of England, ignoring county
divisions and dividing the country according to natural divisions
marked by similarity of soil, crops and agricultural methods. The two
surveys together give us ample information on the different methods of
cultivating open or common fields at the end of the eighteenth century.
On the whole, the most general system, particularly in the midland
counties where common fields remained most numerous, was the following
form of the three-field system:--
“One part” (or one of the three fields) “is annually fallowed, a moiety
of which is folded with sheep and sown with wheat; another moiety is
dunged and sown with barley in the succeeding spring. The part which
produces wheat is broken up and sown with oats, and the part which
produces barley is at the same time generally sown with peas or beans,
and then it comes in routine to be again fallowed the third year.”[16]
This gives us the following rotation of crops: (1), wheat; (2), oats;
(3), fallow; (4), barley; (5), peas or beans; (6), fallow. This was the
system prevailing in Huntingdon.
[16] Maxwell, “Huntingdon,” p. 9.
The same system prevailed in the heavy clay lands of Bedfordshire,
but in the lighter lands sometimes a four-field course was adopted,
sometimes the half of the nominally fallow field that had the previous
year given crops of wheat and oats was sown with turnips, and clover
was sown with barley the succeeding year.[17]
[17] T. Stone, “Bedfordshire,” p. 8.
The commonest four-field course is that described for Isleham,
Cambridgeshire: (1), wheat; (2), barley; (3), pulse or oats; (4),
fallow; the fallow field being dunged or folded with sheep. At Castle
Camps, also in Cambridge, a two-field course of alternate crop and
fallow obtained.[18]
[18] Vancouver, “Cambridgeshire,” p. 33.
Coming further south for Hertfordshire, we are told that the “common
fields are mostly by agreement among the owners and occupiers
cultivated nearly in the same way as in the enclosed state.”[19] In
Buckinghamshire the regular three-fields course was followed in some
parts, but in Upton, Eton, Dorney, Datchett, Maysbury and Horton, “the
occupiers have exploded entirely the old usage of two crops and a
fallow, and now have a crop every year.”
[19] D. Walker, “Hertfordshire,” p. 49.
Two Buckinghamshire parishes underwent experiences which have been
wrongly cited as typical of the inconveniences of common fields,
whereas they are rather instances of the lawless conduct of village
bullies. Steeple Claydon had 2500 acres of common field, on which the
customary course was one crop and a fallow. “About fourteen years ago”
(_i.e._, about 1779) “the proprietors came to an agreement to have two
crops and a fallow, but before the expiration of ten years one of the
farmers broke through the agreement, and turned in his cattle upon the
crops of beans, oats and barley, in which plan he was soon followed by
the rest.”[20] The agreement, if that of a three-fourths majority (see
below), was legally binding on all owners and occupiers, and the first
farmer was liable to the same pains and penalties as if he had turned
his cattle into crops standing on enclosed fields belonging to another
farm. Possibly, however, the crops were a failure, and feeding them off
with cattle was as good a way of dealing with them as another.
[20] William James and Jacob Malcolm, “Buckingham,” p. 30.
A still more difficult case to understand is that of Wendon (3000 acres
common field). It is reported as follows:--“About fourteen years
ago the parishioners came to an agreement and obtained an Act to lay
the small pieces of land together.... When the division took place,
the balks were of necessity ploughed up, by which a great portion of
the sheep pasture was destroyed.[21] It then became expedient, and
it was agreed upon at public vestry, to sow clover and turnips as
a succedaneum for the balks. Two years since, one of the farmers,
occupying 16 acres of these common fields, procured in the month of May
a large flock of lean sheep, which he turned on the clover crops; being
then nearly in bloom, the greater part of which they devoured.”
[21] James and Malcolm, “Buckingham,” p. 29. I have been unable to
find any trace of this Act.
Of Oxfordshire we are told “the present course of husbandry is so
various, particularly in the open fields, that to treat of all the
different ways of management would render this report too voluminous.
It may suffice generally to remark that some fields are in the course
of one crop and fallow, others of two, and a few of three crops and
a fallow. In divers unenclosed parishes the same rotation prevails
over the whole of the open fields; but in others, the more homeward
or bettermost land is oftener cropped, or sometimes cropped every
year.”[22] Where one crop and a fallow was the custom the crop might
be wheat, barley or oats; and sometimes tares were sown on the fallow
field and cut green. The three and four-field systems prevalent were
those described above.
[22] Richard Davis, “Oxfordshire,” p. 11.
In Berkshire a six-year course, evidently evolved from an older
three-years course, was found:--(1), wheat; (2), barley; (3), oats,
with seeds; (4), clover, mowed, and then grazed upon in common; (5),
oats or barley; (6), fallow.
An agreement to withhold turning out stock during the time in which
a field was commonable by ancient custom, in order that turnips,
vetches, etc., might be grown, was practised, and termed “hitching
the fields.”[23] We get the same expression for Wiltshire, where
a part of a field set aside for vetches, peas, beans, turnips, or
potatoes was called a “hookland” or “hitchland” field.[24] In Wiltshire
customs similar to these described as surviving recently in Stratton
and Grimstone were prevalent; clover was generally substituted for
fallow, and was partly mowed for the individual benefit of particular
occupiers, and partly fed upon by the village flock. The following
systems are reported:--
(_a_) First, wheat; second, barley with clover; third, clover part
mowed, part fed.
(_b_) First, wheat; second, barley; third, oats with clover; fourth,
clover part mowed, part fed.
(_c_) First, wheat; second, barley with clover; third, clover mowed;
fourth, clover fed (one-third or a quarter of this field being
“hitchland”).[25]
[23] William Pearce, “Berkshire,” p. 29.
[24] Thomas Davis, “Wiltshire,” p. 43.
[25] Thomas Davis, “Wiltshire,” p. 43.
Turning northwards again from the centre of England, in Rutland the
old three-year course of two crops and a fallow was universal in
the unenclosed parishes;[26] in Lincoln two, three and four-field
systems were practised;[27] the two-field course was also prevalent in
Yorkshire.[28]
[26] John Crutchley, “Rutland,” p. 8.
[27] Thomas Stone, “Lincoln,” p. 26.
[28] Isaac Leatham, “East Riding,” p. 40.
A singular practice was followed in the East Riding Wolds. “The greater
part of the Wold townships which lie open have a great quantity of
out-field in leyland, _i.e._, land from which they take a crop every
third, fourth, fifth, or sixth year, according to the custom of the
township.”[29]
[29] Isaac Leatham, “East Riding,” p. 42.
In contrast we may mention the Battersea common fields, which were
“sown with one uniform round of grain without intermission and
consequently without fallowing.”[30]
[30] James and Malcolm, “Surrey,” p. 48.