┌───────────────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────────────┐ │ │ Before Enclosure │ After Enclosure │ │ 1,000 Acres of │ gives │ gives │ │ │ Employment to │ Employment to │ ├───────────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────┤ │ A Rich Arable Land │ 20 families │ 5 families │ │ B Inferior Arable │ 20 ″ │ 16¼ ″ │ │ C Stinted Common Pastures │ ½ a family │ 5 ″ │ │ D Heaths, Wastes, etc. │ ½ ″ │ 16¼ ″ │ └───────────────────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────────────┘
It will be seen that his observation is that enclosed arable employs 16¼ families per 1000 acres, open field arable 20 families per 1000 acres; that common pastures, heaths, wastes, etc., employ only 1 family per 2000 acres; but enclosed pasture employs 5 families per 1000 acres. It will also be seen that his observation is that after enclosure rich land becomes pasture, inferior land arable.[44]
[44] This is in harmony with all other eighteenth century information with regard to the Midland Counties. As one example we may cite the Vale of Belvoir, the north-eastern corner of Leicestershire. Here, in consequence of enclosure, “all the richest land in the vale, formerly under tillage, was laid down in grass, but the skirtings of the Vale, formerly sheep-walk, were brought into tillage.” The landlord, the Duke of Rutland, forbade any land worth more than a guinea per acre to be tilled. The enclosure of the twelve parishes in the Vale took place between 1766 and 1792. (William Pitt, “Agriculture of Leicestershire,” 1809.)
With regard to the effect of this on population, he names in one passage[45] Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire perhaps, as containing “an infinitely greater proportion of common fields, while Northumberland, Westmoreland and Yorkshire exceed in moors, heaths and commons,” and in another he mentions Oxfordshire, Buckingham, Northamptonshire and part of Leicester as counties in which rich arable land would be the main subject of an Enclosure Act. A typical parish in this district might include 1000 acres of rich arable land, 500 acres of inferior arable, 500 acres of stinted common, with no heath or waste. Before enclosure it would provide employment for 30¼ labouring families according to the table, after enclosure to 15⅝. If eight such parishes were enclosed, 117 families would be sent adrift--families of poor and ignorant labourers, looking for new homes under all the disabilities and difficulties springing from Acts of Settlement, and a Poor Law administration based on the assumption that those who wander from their native place are all that is implied in the words “vagrants” and “vagabonds.” Not eight, but a hundred and twenty-six Acts for enclosing common fields were passed for the four counties he names in the ten years 1762–1772, immediately preceding the publication of this pamphlet. Assuming the accuracy of the “Country Gentleman’s” statement, this would mean that some 1800 odd families, comprising about 9000 individuals, would, in consequence of enclosure, be sent adrift in that short period in the four counties. The quotations given below from three other authors, indicate that even this was an under-statement. The process continued without intermission for many years afterwards.