CHAPTER XII.

THREE ACRES AND A COW.

That the poor were not always the only sufferers from an Enclosure Act, is shown by the account given by the General Report on Enclosures of the way in which farmers were affected. After referring to the idea that opposition from farmers is usually to be ascribed to ignorant prejudice, the report proceeds:--

“In many instances they have suffered considerably for four, five, or six years. From the first starting the project of an Enclosure Act to the final award, has, in numerous cases, taken two, three, four, and even five or six years; their management is deranged; not knowing where their future lands will be allotted, they save all their dung till much of it is good for little; they perform all the operations of tillage with inferior attention; perhaps the fields are cross-cropped and exhausted, and not well recovered under a course of years. Rents are greatly raised and too soon; so that if they do not absolutely lose five years they at least suffer a great check. In point of profit, comparing the old with the new system, attention must be paid to their capitals; open field land is managed (notwithstanding the inconvenience of its pieces) usually with a less capital than enclosures; and though the _general_ profit of the latter exceeds that of the former, yet this will entirely depend on the capital being adequate. In cases where the new enclosures are laid down to grass, all this becomes of tenfold force; to stock rich grass lands demands a far greater sum than open field arable; the farmer may not possess it; this has often happened, and drove them to seek other investments, giving way to new-comers more able to undertake the new system introduced; and if profit be measured by a percentage on the capital employed, the old system might, at the old rents, exceed the profits of the new; and this is certainly the farmers’ view of the comparison. He also who had given the attention of a life to the regular routine of open field arable, without 10 acres of grass ever having been in his occupation, may find himself much at a loss in the regular purchase and sale of live stock, the profit of which depends so much on habitual skill. Add to all this the previous circumstance of laying down to grass, the business of all others of which farmers know the least, of which I have many times seen in new enclosures striking instances; and if all these points be duly considered, we shall not find much reason to be surprised at the repugnance shown by many farmers to the idea of enclosing.” (Pp. 31, 32.)

While the whole of this description of the ordeal that the farmers had to pass through is interesting, the point I desire here to emphasize is the need of a larger capital after enclosure. Those who had the requisite skill, knowledge, energy and capital survived the crisis; they were able to take up the farms which their weaker neighbours were compelled to relinquish; to send, in almost every case, a larger _surplus_ of food from the lands of the parish to maintain the state and power of England, and to pay higher rents. In perhaps the majority of cases they raised a larger gross produce, and provided maintenance and employment for a larger population than before. In some cases even (though these were rare exceptions) the labouring population gained in material prosperity as well as in numbers. But in any case the relationship between employer and employed was notably altered.

In the open field village the entirely landless labourer was scarcely to be found. The division of holdings into numerous scattered pieces, many of which were of minute size, made it easy for a labourer to obtain what were in effect allotments in the common fields. If he had no holding, he still might have a common right; if no acknowledged common right, he might enjoy the advantage of one in a greater or less degree. From the poorest labourer to the richest farmer, there was, in the typical open field village, a gradation of rank. There was no perceptible social gap between the cottager who worked the greater part of his time for others, and for the smaller part of his time on his own holding, who is therefore properly termed a labourer, and his neighbour who reversed that distribution of time, and is therefore to be deemed a farmer. It was easy for the efficient or fortunate man to rise on such a social ladder; equally easy for the inefficient or unlucky to slip downwards.

After enclosure the comparatively few surviving farmers, enriched, elevated intellectually as well as socially by the successful struggle with a new environment, faced, across a deep social gulf, the labourers who had now only their labour to depend upon. In the early part of the nineteenth century, at any rate, it was almost impossible for a labourer to cross that gulf; on his side the farmer henceforward, instead of easily becoming a farm labourer if bankrupt, would rather try his fortune in the growing industrial towns.

Our “Country Farmer” gives us a vivid picture of one side of the social change (“Thoughts on Enclosure,” p. 21). Of the farmer after enclosure he says:

“Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for one of these new created farmers to spend ten or twelve pounds at one entertainment; and to wash down delicate food, must have the most expensive wines, and these the best of their kind; and to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour, an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion. As to dress no one that was not personally acquainted with the opulent farmer’s daughter can distinguish her from the daughter of a Duke by her dress, both equally wishing to imitate something, but they know not what.

“View the farmer before the land was inclosed, and you will find him entertaining his friends with a part of a hog of his own feeding, and a draught of ale brewed from his own malt presented in a brown jug, or a glass, if it would bear it, which was the utmost of his extravagance: in those happy days you might view the farmer in a coat of the growth of his flock; and spun by his industrious wife and daughters, and his stockings produced from the same quarter of his industry, and his wife and daughters clad from their own hands of industry and their own flock.”

As for the other side of this social change, the labourer’s side, it seemed so serious an evil to many even of the progressive landlords and agriculturists who strongly advocated enclosure, that they busied themselves to find a remedy.

In 1897 the Board of Agriculture drew the attention of its members to a typical case. Mr. Thomas Bernard communicated an “Account of a Cottage and Garden near Tadcaster.” The cottager had held two acres of land and a common right at Poppleton for nine years, and there had lived comfortably and brought up six children. The enclosure of the parish turned him adrift, but he prevailed upon a landlord to let him have a piece of roadside waste for a garden, saying, “I will show you the _fashions_ on it.” The landlord was so delighted afterwards with the way in which this garden was cultivated, that he offered the man to let him have it rent free. Particular attention was directed to the man’s reply:--“Now, sir, you have a pleasure in seeing my cottage and garden neat: and why should not other squires have the same pleasure in seeing the cottages and gardens nice about them? The poor would then be happy and would love them and the place where they lived; but now every nook of land is let to the great farmers; and nothing left for the poor but to go to the parish.” (“Communications to the Board,” Vol. I. p. 404.)

It was by “going to the parish” that the labourer could bring home to the landlord the idea that the spirit of ambition and self-reliance fostered by the possession of two acres and a common right was of value to the nation. The national emergency due to the famine prices of food during the French War, which produced the complete change in the spirit of the administration of the Poor Law associated with the “Speenhamland Act of Parliament,” also forced into public attention the desirability of both providing agricultural labourers with some other supplement to their wages, and of encouraging them to avoid pauperism. We accordingly find the Board of Agriculture offering for 1800 three gold medals:--

“To the person who shall build on his estate the most cottages for labouring families, and assign to each a proper portion of land, for the support of not less than a cow, a hog, and a sufficient garden--the Gold Medal.”

“To the person who shall produce the most satisfactory account of the best means of supporting cows on poor land in a method applicable to cottagers--the Gold Medal,” (doubts having been raised with regard to the practicability of cottagers keeping cows except on rich soil).

“The Board having received information that the labouring poor of Rutland and Lincolnshire, having land for one or two cows, and a sufficiency of potatoes, have not applied, in the present scarcity, for any poor law relief; and it appearing to be a great national object to spread so beneficial a system, the Board will give to the person who shall explain, in the most satisfactory manner, the best means for rendering this practice as general through the kingdom as circumstances will admit--the Gold Medal.” (“Communications,” Vol. II.)

Each of these medals was again offered in subsequent years.

The question appears to have been first brought before the Board of Agriculture by the Earl of Winchilsea, in a conversation at the Farmers’ Club with Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board, in 1795. At Sir John Sinclair’s request, the Earl of Winchilsea put his views in writing, and they were submitted to the Board, in the form of a letter, dated Jan. 4th, 1796. This letter is a convincing statement in favour of the case for “three acres and a cow,” and deserves the attention of politicians of to-day.

Beginning by stating that he has made further enquiries, since the conversation with Sir John Sinclair, into the practice of agricultural labourers keeping cows, he continues:--“I am more and more confirmed in the opinion I have long had, that nothing is so beneficial, both to them and to the landowners, as their having land to be occupied either for the keeping of cows, or as gardens, according to circumstances. By means of these advantages, the labourers and their families live better, and are consequently more fit to endure labour; and it makes them more contented, and gives them a sort of independence, which makes them set a higher value on their character.... When a labourer has obtained a cow, and land sufficient to maintain her, the first thing he has thought of has been how he could save money enough to buy another; ... there are from 70 to 80 labourers upon my estate in Rutland, who keep from 1 to 4 cows each.... I am informed that those who manage well clear about 20_d._ per week, or £4 6_s._ 8_d._ per ann. by each cow.”[75]

[75] Milk being valued at 1_d._ per quart; it seems clear also that what is consumed at home is not included in this calculation.

If the cow died, it was, he says, a great misfortune for the labourer, but he contrived to beg or borrow the money necessary to obtain another cow--“I scarcely ever knew a cow-gait given up for want of ability to obtain a cow, except in the case of old and infirm women.”

He classifies the situation of labourers, in order of felicity, as follows:--

(1) Those who have a sufficient quantity of grass enclosed land to enable them to keep one or more cows winter and summer, and a garden near their house; a grass field allotted to a certain number being as advantageous, or nearly so, as separate small enclosures.

(2) Those who have a summer pasture for their cow, and some arable land, on which they grow the winter provision. This is slightly less advantageous than (1), because tilling the arable land takes up more time.

(3) Those who have a right of common for the summer keep of the cow, and a meadow, or arable ground, or the share of a meadow in common, for the winter provision. If it were not that commons are usually over-stocked, this would be equivalent to (1) or (2).

(4) Those who have a right of common, but no cow, and a garden. In this case geese and pigs can be kept.

(5) Those who have a right of common and no garden. In this case the value of the right of common depends upon whether fuel is obtained from the common or not.

(6) Those who have several acres of arable land, and no summer pasture for a cow. This, he maintains, is of little value, because of the large expenditure of labour necessary for cultivating the land, but he admits that many would differ from him on this point.

(7) Those who have a garden near the house.

(8) Those who have no land whatever. “This is a very bad situation for a labourer to be placed in, both for his comfort and the education of his children.”

Then he continues, in words which seem in general as true and weighty now as when written or as at any time within the last hundred years:--“In countries where it has never been the custom for labourers to keep cows, it would be very difficult to introduce it; but where no gardens have been annexed to the cottages it is sufficient to give the ground, and the labourer is sure to know what to do with it, and will reap an immediate benefit from it ... there should be as much as will produce all the garden stuff the family consumes, and enough, with the addition of a little meal, for a pig. I think they ought to pay the same rent that a farmer would pay for the land, and no more. I am persuaded that it frequently happens that a labourer lives in a house at 20_s._ a year rent, which he is unable to pay, to which, if a garden of a rood was added, for which he would have to pay five or ten shillings a year more, that he would be enabled, by the profit he would derive from the garden, to pay the rent of the house, etc., with great advantage to himself.

“As I before mentioned, some difficulties may occur in establishing the custom of labourers keeping cows in those parts of the country where no such custom has existed; wherever it has or does exist it ought by all means to be encouraged, and not suffered to fall into disuse, as has been the case to a great degree in the midland counties, one of the causes of which I apprehend to be, the dislike the generality of farmers have to seeing the labourers rent any land. Perhaps one of their reasons for disliking this is, that the land, if not occupied by the labourers, would fall to their share; and another, I am afraid, is, that they rather wish to have the labourers more dependent upon them, for which reasons they are always desirous of hiring the house and land occupied by a labourer, under pretence, that by that means the landlord will be secure of his rent, and that they will keep the house in repair. This the agents of estates are too apt to give in to, as they find it much less trouble to meet six than sixty tenants at a rent day, and by this means avoid the being sometimes obliged to hear the wants and complaints of the poor.” ... The landlord naturally yields to this pressure ... “and it is in this manner that the labourers have been dispossessed of their cow-pastures in various parts of the midland counties. The moment the farmer obtains his wish, he takes every particle of the land to himself, and relets the house to the labourer, who by this means is rendered miserable, the poors rate increased, the value of the estate to the landlord diminished, and the house suffered to go to decay.... Whoever travels through the midland counties, and will take the trouble of enquiring, will generally receive the answer, that formerly there were a great many cottagers who kept cows, but that the land is now thrown to the farmers; and if he enquires still further, he will find that in those parishes the poors rates have increased in an amazing degree, more than according to the average rise throughout England.”

Sir John Sinclair,[76] President of the Board of Agriculture, did not agree that a plot of a few acres of arable land was, by itself, of little value to the agricultural labourer. He estimates that two cows can be kept on 3¼ acres of arable land, and that the net produce, valuing milk at 1_d._ per quart, would amount to £21 per annum, about as much as the man’s wages. He advocated spade labour, and recommended that the cottager should rather hire men to dig for him, than get the land ploughed. In confirmation of this opinion Sir Henry Vavasour cited an example of a cottager holding 3 acres who kept two cows and two pigs. The butter alone paid the rent, and the gross produce was estimated at £54 per annum, exclusive of milk and vegetables consumed at home.

[76] “Communications to the Board of Agriculture,” IV., p. 358.

It is of course practically impossible to calculate how much effect this landowners’ agitation for the policy of “Three acres and a cow” had on the number of such cottage holdings. Lord Brownlow[77] writes: “In all open field lordships there have always been pastures in which the cottagers have had their share of benefit; but the practice of enabling cottagers to keep cows in inclosed parishes, is in my neighbourhood rare, and of recent date.” Accounts are sent of cottage holdings provided by the Earl of Carrington, and of large allotments provided by Mr. Thomas Estcourt; but I cannot say how extensively their example was followed.

[77] “Communications to the Board of Agriculture,” IV., p. 367.

Mr. W. E. Bear’s report to the recent Labour Commission, on the agricultural labourers of the Southwell Union, contains the following passage, in which we probably see some fruits of the Earl of Winchilsea’s movement:--“Small holdings, of three to ten acres commonly, are let with cottages in a few parishes, and called ‘cottagers.’ This custom appears to be a very old one, dating back far beyond the time when the term ‘three acres and a cow’ was invented. In Ossington, Mr. Richardson told me, it was 50 years old or more; but he said it was falling into disuse. I found some ‘cottagers’ in Averham, Ossington and Hockerton, and heard of them in another parish or two. They usually consist of grass land, and are best so, as the labourer can leave his wife to manage the cow or two kept on them, and work for wages regularly. In Averham some of these small holdings have been given up, apparently because they were partly arable, and occupiers found that they could not keep regular places and also attend to their land. But where the land is all pasture, they are excellent institutions, providing families with milk, and adding to the incomes by means of milk or butter, poultry, eggs and pork sold. These little holdings are let from £2 10_s._ to £3 an acre, including the cottage” (par. 51 A).

The same Commissioner found in Leicestershire a system of common cow-runs for cottagers which also probably dates from the eighteenth century, being in some way a survival from the common field system. He describes it as follows:--

“There are cow plots let with cottages in several parishes. Some have already been referred to as existing on the Earl of Dysart’s estate. One example is to be found at Saxby, where cow runs of 6 a. 3 r. 12 p., each in common, are let with a cottage and garden at £10 per annum. At Grimston I visited some which are let by Mr. Wright or Mr. Reckitts, who appear to be somehow connected on the same estate.... Some of these cow-plots are 3½ acres in extent, and their holders are allowed to keep only one cow, as three or more of them occupy a pasture in common, having a portion of their 3½ acres each year to mow and another portion to feed. The rent, including cottage and garden, is £10. There are some other cow plots of 8 acres on which two or three cows are kept, the rent being £15. In these cases, too, the pasture is common to several holders, each one having a piece to mow, while they run their cows together on the portion devoted to grazing. As an example of the advantage which a cow plot may sometimes be to a labourer and his family, I may mention the case of a widow who has 3½ acres and a very good cottage for £10 per annum. Last year she had an exceptionally good cow, and she sold milk at the rate of 6_d._ a gallon, amounting to £15 10_s._, fattening a calf which sold at £4 10_s._; altogether the return was £20, besides what milk was consumed in the cottage.”

Another probable survival of the Earl of Winchilsea’s movement is thus described by Mr. Rider Haggard:--

“The system of cottage holdings was introduced about a hundred years ago on the Burley estate” (Rutlandshire) “and was copied by the late Lord Tollemache, who was brother-in-law of the late Mr. Finch. It is in force in the parishes of Burley, Egleton, Hambleton and Greetham. In 1901 there lived in those parishes forty-three small occupiers, whose acreage varied from 5 acres to 40 acres, the holdings being all grass. Originally there were many more, the Hambleton cow pasture, which is 102 acres in estate, being divided into 80 cow commons. Some of the holders occupy two or more small fields, but the general custom has been for tenants to graze large fields in common, and to have separate small fields reserved for mowing hay in the winter. In the fields which are grazed in common, five roods have been taken as sufficient to keep a cow.” (“Rural England,” Vol. II. p. 260.)