A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
Different 
ocalities 
competed in 
1 national 
market 
356 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
of which so much complaint had been made in Tudor times, 
did not by any means cease when the profit on sheep-farming 
declined’. Some of the displaced population migrated to 
other commons, some to towns? and some appear to have 
emigrated?, 
The difficulty of following the effects of the change 18 
greatly increased by the fact that substantial loss in certain 
districts must be set against the gain in others. By new 
methods of manuring it was possible to bring land into 
cultivation which had never been tilled before. The ex- 
hausted common fields could not compete against the produce 
is contrary to the interest of the nation (1732), Brit. Mus. T. 1856 (8). He argues 
that if inclosure became more general there would be less agricultural employ- 
ment, and that the by-employments of spinning and manufacturing wool would 
also decline as well as all the subsidiary village trades,—such as wheelwrights, 
smiths, etc. (pp. 3, 7, 8). See also the Enquiry into the reasons for and against 
Inclosing the open Fields (1767), Brit. Mus. 1959 (3), p- 29, where special reference 
is made to Leicestershire. In a reply to this pamphlet Pennington argues that if 
the processes of manufacture are included, the raising of wool affords far more 
opportunities of employment, before it is ready for the use of the consumer, than 
the raising of corn. [Reflections on the various advantages resulting from the 
draining, snclosing and allotting of large commons (1769), P. 19. The same line 
of argument had been taken by Homer (Essay on the Nature and Method of 
ascertaining the Specific shares of proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common 
Fields (1766), p. 85; he looked with complacency on the movement of the popu- 
lation from the villages. “There is a natural Transition of the Inhabitants of 
Villages, where the Labour of Agriculture is lessened, into Places of Trade, where 
onr Naval Superiority, as long as it lasts, will furnish Sources of perpetual 
Employment. Whether the hands, thus directed from Agriculture to Manu- 
facture, are not in that Station more useful to the Publick, than in their former, 
is an Enquiry which might perhaps be prosecuted with some Entertainment to 
the Reader.” 
1 See above p. 101. Dyer writing in 1757 insists that enclosure is desirable in 
the interests of the quality of wool; but he is thinking of a flock in conjunction 
vith tillage. The Fleece: —Anderson—~Poets of Great Britain, 1%. 564. 
% Leonard, op. cit. 123. 
» « Inclosure with depopulation is a Canker to the Commonwealth. It needs 
no proof; woful experience shows how it unhouses thousands of people, till 
lesperate need thrusts them on the gallows. Long since had this land been sick 
of a plurisie of people, if not let blood in their Western Plantations.” Fuller, 
Holy State (1642), Bk. 11. ¢. 13. Also in the following century. Cursory Remarks 
on Enclosure by a Country Farmer, 1786, p. 6. 
¢ “The Downs or Plains which are generally called Salisbury plain...were 
formerly left open to be fed by the large flocks of sheep so often mentioned ; but 
now so much of the Downs are ploughed up as has increased the Quantity of Corn 
produced in this country in a prodigions Manner and lessened their Quantity of 
Wool, as above; all which had been done by folding the sheep upon the plow'd 
ands, removing the fold every night to a fresh Place, till the whole Piece of 
Ground has been folded upon; this and this alone, has made these lands, which in 
ihemselves are poor, able to bear as good wheat as any of the richer lands in the