This one farmer still (in 1899) followed what had been the customary course of cultivation for the parish--a four years course of wheat, beans, wheat, fallow; this being a modification of a still earlier course of wheat, beans, barley, fallow, the soil being more suitable to wheat than to barley. The other farmers followed no fixed rule, each one cultivating his farm as he chose, subject, however, to the right that was still recognised and exercised, that each occupier could turn horses, cattle and sheep on to the common fields after harvest until the first of November. In consequence of the abandonment of the traditional course of cultivation the common use of the fallow-field has been dropped by general consent, for the last forty or fifty years. The institution of the field jury has also disappeared; though the above-mentioned old farmer still posts the notices declaring the fields open or closed, and so may be said to fill the post of “foreman of the fields,” he does so by right of inheritance rather than of election, in succession to his father.
Various controversies have arisen recently in Elmstone Hardwicke with regard to the rights of various persons interested. I have referred above to the case of the farmer who, in the spring of 1899, occupying a “headland” in the common fields on which various strips belonging to his neighbours abutted, instead of following the customary practice and waiting to plough till the last, ploughed his headland before the abutting lands were ploughed, and then sued for damages when his neighbours turned their ploughs on his land.
Another farmer who occupied a very small holding in Elmstone Hardwicke, and a much larger holding in an adjoining parish, made a practice of turning great numbers of sheep on the Elmstone Hardwicke common fields in the open time, which he was able to keep in the close time on his other land. The question arose whether this unfair procedure was lawful. The coming into force of the Parish Councils Act of 1894 also had the effect of suggesting enquiries into the claims of labourers to share in common-right privileges.
The vicar, the Rev. George Bayfield Roberts, accordingly obtained the opinion of Sir Walter Phillimore on the subject. It was as follows:--