Six other reasons follow, then the remark: “Parliamentary enclosures are scarcely ever so complete and general as in Norfolk,” _i.e._, as the enclosures without the assistance of Parliament in Norfolk. I have only been able to find eleven Acts of Enclosure for Norfolk before 1771; seven of these were for the enclosure of common field parishes, and four for the enclosure of waste. In other words, the Parliamentary enclosure of these sheep-walks at the time when Arthur Young wrote had proceeded to a merely trifling extent.
We have, then, by Arthur Young’s confession, in the five counties of Northampton, Leicester, Warwick, Huntingdon, and Buckingham enclosure admittedly accompanied by decay of tillage and rural depopulation. From “A Country Gentleman’s” list we can add Oxfordshire and parts of Lincolnshire. That the same prevailing economic motive operated in Bedfordshire can be shown from Arthur Young’s “Tour through the North of England.” The country in June, 1768, from St. Neots to Kimbolton was in general open--“the open fields let at 7_s._ and 7_s._ 6_d._ per acre, and the _inclosed pastures_ about 17_s._ Hence we find a profit of 10_s._ an acre _by inclosing and laying to grass_.” He might here ask, as he does with regard to the district in Buckinghamshire between Aylesbury and Buckingham, which he found in 1771 in the condition of open field arable, under a course of fallow, wheat, beans, fallow, barley, beans. “As to the landlords, what in the name of wonder can be the reason of their not inclosing! All this vale would make as fine meadows as any in the world.”
As for Gloucestershire, William Marshall (“Rural Economy of Gloucestershire,” 1789, p. 21), estimates the rents in the Vale of Evesham at 10_s._ to 15_s._ per acre for common field arable, 10_s._ to 20_s._ per acre for enclosed arable, and 20_s._ to 50_s._ per acre for enclosed pasture. Here again there can be no doubt that enclosure implied laying down at least all the good land in grass.
A Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the high prices of food in December, 1800 (1800 and 1801 being famine years), made enquiry, by the help of the parish clergy, into the increase or decrease of land under different crops, and of cattle, sheep, and pigs in the districts which had been enclosed in the previous 45 years by private Acts (_i.e._, since 1755). The total result showed a net gain in area under wheat in 1,767,651 acres enclosed of 10,625 acres; the area under wheat being before enclosure 155,572 acres; after, 165,837 acres. But these figures included all sorts of enclosure. The Board of Agriculture (“Gen. Report,” pp. 39 and 232), by leaving out cases where waste only was enclosed, obtained the following result for cases of enclosure of all commonable lands, under Acts passed between 1761 and 1799, in parishes where commonable arable was included. Taking the counties in groups we have:--