THREE ACRES AND A COW.
That the poor were not always the only sufferers from an Enclosure Act,
is shown by the account given by the General Report on Enclosures of
the way in which farmers were affected. After referring to the idea
that opposition from farmers is usually to be ascribed to ignorant
prejudice, the report proceeds:--
“In many instances they have suffered considerably for four, five,
or six years. From the first starting the project of an Enclosure Act
to the final award, has, in numerous cases, taken two, three, four,
and even five or six years; their management is deranged; not knowing
where their future lands will be allotted, they save all their dung
till much of it is good for little; they perform all the operations of
tillage with inferior attention; perhaps the fields are cross-cropped
and exhausted, and not well recovered under a course of years. Rents
are greatly raised and too soon; so that if they do not absolutely lose
five years they at least suffer a great check. In point of profit,
comparing the old with the new system, attention must be paid to their
capitals; open field land is managed (notwithstanding the inconvenience
of its pieces) usually with a less capital than enclosures; and though
the _general_ profit of the latter exceeds that of the former, yet this
will entirely depend on the capital being adequate. In cases where the
new enclosures are laid down to grass, all this becomes of tenfold
force; to stock rich grass lands demands a far greater sum than open
field arable; the farmer may not possess it; this has often happened,
and drove them to seek other investments, giving way to new-comers more
able to undertake the new system introduced; and if profit be measured
by a percentage on the capital employed, the old system might, at the
old rents, exceed the profits of the new; and this is certainly the
farmers’ view of the comparison. He also who had given the attention
of a life to the regular routine of open field arable, without 10
acres of grass ever having been in his occupation, may find himself
much at a loss in the regular purchase and sale of live stock, the
profit of which depends so much on habitual skill. Add to all this the
previous circumstance of laying down to grass, the business of all
others of which farmers know the least, of which I have many times
seen in new enclosures striking instances; and if all these points be
duly considered, we shall not find much reason to be surprised at the
repugnance shown by many farmers to the idea of enclosing.” (Pp. 31,
32.)
While the whole of this description of the ordeal that the farmers had
to pass through is interesting, the point I desire here to emphasize
is the need of a larger capital after enclosure. Those who had the
requisite skill, knowledge, energy and capital survived the crisis;
they were able to take up the farms which their weaker neighbours
were compelled to relinquish; to send, in almost every case, a larger
_surplus_ of food from the lands of the parish to maintain the state
and power of England, and to pay higher rents. In perhaps the majority
of cases they raised a larger gross produce, and provided maintenance
and employment for a larger population than before. In some cases even
(though these were rare exceptions) the labouring population gained
in material prosperity as well as in numbers. But in any case the
relationship between employer and employed was notably altered.
In the open field village the entirely landless labourer was scarcely
to be found. The division of holdings into numerous scattered pieces,
many of which were of minute size, made it easy for a labourer to
obtain what were in effect allotments in the common fields. If he had
no holding, he still might have a common right; if no acknowledged
common right, he might enjoy the advantage of one in a greater or less
degree. From the poorest labourer to the richest farmer, there was,
in the typical open field village, a gradation of rank. There was no
perceptible social gap between the cottager who worked the greater part
of his time for others, and for the smaller part of his time on his own
holding, who is therefore properly termed a labourer, and his neighbour
who reversed that distribution of time, and is therefore to be deemed a
farmer. It was easy for the efficient or fortunate man to rise on such
a social ladder; equally easy for the inefficient or unlucky to slip
downwards.
After enclosure the comparatively few surviving farmers, enriched,
elevated intellectually as well as socially by the successful struggle
with a new environment, faced, across a deep social gulf, the labourers
who had now only their labour to depend upon. In the early part of
the nineteenth century, at any rate, it was almost impossible for a
labourer to cross that gulf; on his side the farmer henceforward,
instead of easily becoming a farm labourer if bankrupt, would rather
try his fortune in the growing industrial towns.
Our “Country Farmer” gives us a vivid picture of one side of the social
change (“Thoughts on Enclosure,” p. 21). Of the farmer after enclosure
he says:
“Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is
no uncommon thing for one of these new created farmers to spend ten or
twelve pounds at one entertainment; and to wash down delicate food,
must have the most expensive wines, and these the best of their kind;
and to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour, an elegant
sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion. As to dress
no one that was not personally acquainted with the opulent farmer’s
daughter can distinguish her from the daughter of a Duke by her dress,
both equally wishing to imitate something, but they know not what.
“View the farmer before the land was inclosed, and you will find him
entertaining his friends with a part of a hog of his own feeding, and a
draught of ale brewed from his own malt presented in a brown jug, or a
glass, if it would bear it, which was the utmost of his extravagance:
in those happy days you might view the farmer in a coat of the growth
of his flock; and spun by his industrious wife and daughters, and his
stockings produced from the same quarter of his industry, and his wife
and daughters clad from their own hands of industry and their own
flock.”
As for the other side of this social change, the labourer’s side, it
seemed so serious an evil to many even of the progressive landlords
and agriculturists who strongly advocated enclosure, that they busied
themselves to find a remedy.
In 1897 the Board of Agriculture drew the attention of its members to a
typical case. Mr. Thomas Bernard communicated an “Account of a Cottage
and Garden near Tadcaster.” The cottager had held two acres of land
and a common right at Poppleton for nine years, and there had lived
comfortably and brought up six children. The enclosure of the parish
turned him adrift, but he prevailed upon a landlord to let him have
a piece of roadside waste for a garden, saying, “I will show you the
_fashions_ on it.” The landlord was so delighted afterwards with the
way in which this garden was cultivated, that he offered the man to let
him have it rent free. Particular attention was directed to the man’s
reply:--“Now, sir, you have a pleasure in seeing my cottage and garden
neat: and why should not other squires have the same pleasure in seeing
the cottages and gardens nice about them? The poor would then be happy
and would love them and the place where they lived; but now every nook
of land is let to the great farmers; and nothing left for the poor but
to go to the parish.” (“Communications to the Board,” Vol. I. p. 404.)
It was by “going to the parish” that the labourer could bring home to
the landlord the idea that the spirit of ambition and self-reliance
fostered by the possession of two acres and a common right was of
value to the nation. The national emergency due to the famine prices
of food during the French War, which produced the complete change in
the spirit of the administration of the Poor Law associated with the
“Speenhamland Act of Parliament,” also forced into public attention the
desirability of both providing agricultural labourers with some other
supplement to their wages, and of encouraging them to avoid pauperism.
We accordingly find the Board of Agriculture offering for 1800 three
gold medals:--
“To the person who shall build on his estate the most cottages for
labouring families, and assign to each a proper portion of land, for
the support of not less than a cow, a hog, and a sufficient garden--the
Gold Medal.”
“To the person who shall produce the most satisfactory account of the
best means of supporting cows on poor land in a method applicable to
cottagers--the Gold Medal,” (doubts having been raised with regard to
the practicability of cottagers keeping cows except on rich soil).
“The Board having received information that the labouring poor of
Rutland and Lincolnshire, having land for one or two cows, and a
sufficiency of potatoes, have not applied, in the present scarcity, for
any poor law relief; and it appearing to be a great national object
to spread so beneficial a system, the Board will give to the person
who shall explain, in the most satisfactory manner, the best means for
rendering this practice as general through the kingdom as circumstances
will admit--the Gold Medal.” (“Communications,” Vol. II.)
Each of these medals was again offered in subsequent years.
The question appears to have been first brought before the Board
of Agriculture by the Earl of Winchilsea, in a conversation at the
Farmers’ Club with Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board, in 1795.
At Sir John Sinclair’s request, the Earl of Winchilsea put his views in
writing, and they were submitted to the Board, in the form of a letter,
dated Jan. 4th, 1796. This letter is a convincing statement in favour
of the case for “three acres and a cow,” and deserves the attention of
politicians of to-day.
Beginning by stating that he has made further enquiries, since the
conversation with Sir John Sinclair, into the practice of agricultural
labourers keeping cows, he continues:--“I am more and more confirmed
in the opinion I have long had, that nothing is so beneficial, both to
them and to the landowners, as their having land to be occupied either
for the keeping of cows, or as gardens, according to circumstances.
By means of these advantages, the labourers and their families live
better, and are consequently more fit to endure labour; and it makes
them more contented, and gives them a sort of independence, which makes
them set a higher value on their character.... When a labourer has
obtained a cow, and land sufficient to maintain her, the first thing he
has thought of has been how he could save money enough to buy another;
... there are from 70 to 80 labourers upon my estate in Rutland, who
keep from 1 to 4 cows each.... I am informed that those who manage
well clear about 20_d._ per week, or £4 6_s._ 8_d._ per ann. by each
cow.”[75]
[75] Milk being valued at 1_d._ per quart; it seems clear also that
what is consumed at home is not included in this calculation.
If the cow died, it was, he says, a great misfortune for the labourer,
but he contrived to beg or borrow the money necessary to obtain another
cow--“I scarcely ever knew a cow-gait given up for want of ability to
obtain a cow, except in the case of old and infirm women.”
He classifies the situation of labourers, in order of felicity, as
follows:--
(1) Those who have a sufficient quantity of grass enclosed land to
enable them to keep one or more cows winter and summer, and a garden
near their house; a grass field allotted to a certain number being as
advantageous, or nearly so, as separate small enclosures.
(2) Those who have a summer pasture for their cow, and some arable
land, on which they grow the winter provision. This is slightly less
advantageous than (1), because tilling the arable land takes up more
time.
(3) Those who have a right of common for the summer keep of the cow,
and a meadow, or arable ground, or the share of a meadow in common,
for the winter provision. If it were not that commons are usually
over-stocked, this would be equivalent to (1) or (2).
(4) Those who have a right of common, but no cow, and a garden. In this
case geese and pigs can be kept.
(5) Those who have a right of common and no garden. In this case the
value of the right of common depends upon whether fuel is obtained from
the common or not.
(6) Those who have several acres of arable land, and no summer pasture
for a cow. This, he maintains, is of little value, because of the large
expenditure of labour necessary for cultivating the land, but he admits
that many would differ from him on this point.
(7) Those who have a garden near the house.
(8) Those who have no land whatever. “This is a very bad situation for
a labourer to be placed in, both for his comfort and the education of
his children.”
Then he continues, in words which seem in general as true and weighty
now as when written or as at any time within the last hundred
years:--“In countries where it has never been the custom for labourers
to keep cows, it would be very difficult to introduce it; but where
no gardens have been annexed to the cottages it is sufficient to give
the ground, and the labourer is sure to know what to do with it, and
will reap an immediate benefit from it ... there should be as much as
will produce all the garden stuff the family consumes, and enough,
with the addition of a little meal, for a pig. I think they ought to
pay the same rent that a farmer would pay for the land, and no more.
I am persuaded that it frequently happens that a labourer lives in a
house at 20_s._ a year rent, which he is unable to pay, to which, if a
garden of a rood was added, for which he would have to pay five or ten
shillings a year more, that he would be enabled, by the profit he would
derive from the garden, to pay the rent of the house, etc., with great
advantage to himself.
“As I before mentioned, some difficulties may occur in establishing
the custom of labourers keeping cows in those parts of the country
where no such custom has existed; wherever it has or does exist
it ought by all means to be encouraged, and not suffered to fall
into disuse, as has been the case to a great degree in the midland
counties, one of the causes of which I apprehend to be, the dislike
the generality of farmers have to seeing the labourers rent any land.
Perhaps one of their reasons for disliking this is, that the land, if
not occupied by the labourers, would fall to their share; and another,
I am afraid, is, that they rather wish to have the labourers more
dependent upon them, for which reasons they are always desirous of
hiring the house and land occupied by a labourer, under pretence, that
by that means the landlord will be secure of his rent, and that they
will keep the house in repair. This the agents of estates are too apt
to give in to, as they find it much less trouble to meet six than sixty
tenants at a rent day, and by this means avoid the being sometimes
obliged to hear the wants and complaints of the poor.” ... The landlord
naturally yields to this pressure ... “and it is in this manner that
the labourers have been dispossessed of their cow-pastures in various
parts of the midland counties. The moment the farmer obtains his wish,
he takes every particle of the land to himself, and relets the house to
the labourer, who by this means is rendered miserable, the poors rate
increased, the value of the estate to the landlord diminished, and the
house suffered to go to decay.... Whoever travels through the midland
counties, and will take the trouble of enquiring, will generally
receive the answer, that formerly there were a great many cottagers who
kept cows, but that the land is now thrown to the farmers; and if he
enquires still further, he will find that in those parishes the poors
rates have increased in an amazing degree, more than according to the
average rise throughout England.”
Sir John Sinclair,[76] President of the Board of Agriculture, did not
agree that a plot of a few acres of arable land was, by itself, of
little value to the agricultural labourer. He estimates that two cows
can be kept on 3¼ acres of arable land, and that the net produce,
valuing milk at 1_d._ per quart, would amount to £21 per annum, about
as much as the man’s wages. He advocated spade labour, and recommended
that the cottager should rather hire men to dig for him, than get the
land ploughed. In confirmation of this opinion Sir Henry Vavasour
cited an example of a cottager holding 3 acres who kept two cows and
two pigs. The butter alone paid the rent, and the gross produce was
estimated at £54 per annum, exclusive of milk and vegetables consumed
at home.
[76] “Communications to the Board of Agriculture,” IV., p. 358.
It is of course practically impossible to calculate how much effect
this landowners’ agitation for the policy of “Three acres and a cow”
had on the number of such cottage holdings. Lord Brownlow[77] writes:
“In all open field lordships there have always been pastures in which
the cottagers have had their share of benefit; but the practice
of enabling cottagers to keep cows in inclosed parishes, is in my
neighbourhood rare, and of recent date.” Accounts are sent of cottage
holdings provided by the Earl of Carrington, and of large allotments
provided by Mr. Thomas Estcourt; but I cannot say how extensively their
example was followed.
[77] “Communications to the Board of Agriculture,” IV., p. 367.
Mr. W. E. Bear’s report to the recent Labour Commission, on the
agricultural labourers of the Southwell Union, contains the
following passage, in which we probably see some fruits of the
Earl of Winchilsea’s movement:--“Small holdings, of three to ten
acres commonly, are let with cottages in a few parishes, and called
‘cottagers.’ This custom appears to be a very old one, dating back far
beyond the time when the term ‘three acres and a cow’ was invented.
In Ossington, Mr. Richardson told me, it was 50 years old or more;
but he said it was falling into disuse. I found some ‘cottagers’ in
Averham, Ossington and Hockerton, and heard of them in another parish
or two. They usually consist of grass land, and are best so, as the
labourer can leave his wife to manage the cow or two kept on them,
and work for wages regularly. In Averham some of these small holdings
have been given up, apparently because they were partly arable, and
occupiers found that they could not keep regular places and also attend
to their land. But where the land is all pasture, they are excellent
institutions, providing families with milk, and adding to the incomes
by means of milk or butter, poultry, eggs and pork sold. These little
holdings are let from £2 10_s._ to £3 an acre, including the cottage”
(par. 51 A).
The same Commissioner found in Leicestershire a system of common
cow-runs for cottagers which also probably dates from the eighteenth
century, being in some way a survival from the common field system. He
describes it as follows:--
“There are cow plots let with cottages in several parishes. Some have
already been referred to as existing on the Earl of Dysart’s estate.
One example is to be found at Saxby, where cow runs of 6 a. 3 r. 12 p.,
each in common, are let with a cottage and garden at £10 per annum. At
Grimston I visited some which are let by Mr. Wright or Mr. Reckitts,
who appear to be somehow connected on the same estate.... Some of
these cow-plots are 3½ acres in extent, and their holders are allowed
to keep only one cow, as three or more of them occupy a pasture in
common, having a portion of their 3½ acres each year to mow and another
portion to feed. The rent, including cottage and garden, is £10. There
are some other cow plots of 8 acres on which two or three cows are
kept, the rent being £15. In these cases, too, the pasture is common
to several holders, each one having a piece to mow, while they run
their cows together on the portion devoted to grazing. As an example of
the advantage which a cow plot may sometimes be to a labourer and his
family, I may mention the case of a widow who has 3½ acres and a very
good cottage for £10 per annum. Last year she had an exceptionally good
cow, and she sold milk at the rate of 6_d._ a gallon, amounting to £15
10_s._, fattening a calf which sold at £4 10_s._; altogether the return
was £20, besides what milk was consumed in the cottage.”
Another probable survival of the Earl of Winchilsea’s movement is thus
described by Mr. Rider Haggard:--
“The system of cottage holdings was introduced about a hundred years
ago on the Burley estate” (Rutlandshire) “and was copied by the late
Lord Tollemache, who was brother-in-law of the late Mr. Finch. It is in
force in the parishes of Burley, Egleton, Hambleton and Greetham. In
1901 there lived in those parishes forty-three small occupiers, whose
acreage varied from 5 acres to 40 acres, the holdings being all grass.
Originally there were many more, the Hambleton cow pasture, which is
102 acres in estate, being divided into 80 cow commons. Some of the
holders occupy two or more small fields, but the general custom has
been for tenants to graze large fields in common, and to have separate
small fields reserved for mowing hay in the winter. In the fields which
are grazed in common, five roods have been taken as sufficient to keep
a cow.” (“Rural England,” Vol. II. p. 260.)