ENCLOSURE AND THE LABOURERS 715 
however, the labourers’ condition was changed for the worse AD. yi 
by the extinction of small farms; in the old days there had 
always been a possibility that he might become an inde- os 
i eprived of 
pendent farmer, but he was practically precluded from ob- tie hope of 
taining such capital as was requisite for working a large 7h, word. 
farm. He was thus cut off from any hope of bettering 
himself, or becoming his own master; through the progress 
of enclosure he was rendered entirely dependent on his wages 
as a labourer?, and at the same time he was deprived of any 
prospect of ever being more than a wage-earner, and of 
attaining an improved status. 
262. At the very time when the rural labourer was 
which could keep a cow was as well off as if they had five or six shillings of parish 
allowance (Annals, xxxv1. 510); and Arthur Young's idea of suitable land seems 
always to have been such land as would enable them to keep one cow, or at all 
events some sort of stock (7b. 541). Sir John Sinclair discusses how this might 
be managed in counection with arable allotments, and in counties where little 
or no grazing land was available (Jb. xxxvir. 232), and he lays down the following 
principles (Jb. 233). 
“1st. That the cottager shall raise by his own labour some of the most 
material articles of subsistence for himself and his family. 
“2nd. That he shall be enabled to supply the adjoining markets with the 
mmaller agricultural productions; and 
“3rd. That both he and his family shall have it in their power to assist the 
neighbouring farmers, at all seasons of the year, almost equally as well as if they 
had no land in their occupation.” 
The last of these touches on the crucial difficulty. If the labourers’ allot- 
ments demanded more than * the leisure hour horticulture’ (4nnals, xxxvi. 852), it 
would interfere with the labourers’ employment and consequently with his wages. 
The problem therefore of providing suitable allotments was of this kind,—that the 
labourer should have so much land as would enable him to keep a cow, but not 
enough to interfere with his ordinary work for an employer. There was a very 
general feeling, at the beginning of this century, that this problem did not present 
insuperable difficulties; but it is obviously one which is not capable of solution in 
general ferms by such a formula as ‘three acres and a cow.’ A good deal of 
attention was given to this mode of affording assistance to cottagers, but it may 
oe doubted how far it produced the improvement that Arthur Young had hoped 
for, as those who received allotments were not thereby excluded from participation 
in poor relief. On the other hand, there were many economists who were inclined 
to condemn the arrangement, as they held that such assistance would, like parish 
allowances, lower the rate of wages; while Malthus and his followers regarded it 
a8 an inadequate solution of the recurring problem presented by the pressure of 
population. See below, p. 743 n. 2. I am inclined to believe that these doctrinaire 
eriticisms prevented the scheme from being so generally tried as might have been 
lesirable. Had it been more generally adopted, and subsistence-cultivation re- 
introduced even to a small extent, the fall of prices in 1815 could surely not have 
been attended by such distress, and there would have been less excuse for an 
:xpedient like the Corn Law of that year. 1 See p. 723 below.