[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:--