The Enclosure of Open Ficlds: Preface to a
Study of Its Impact on the Efficiency
of English Agriculture in the
Eighteenth Century
N 1700 much of the land of Encland was farmed under the
ancient system of open fields. With is three great fields planted
in a communally regulated rotation af crops, its common meadows
fand wastes, and its mixture of holdings in hondreds of stripe less
than acre each, this apparently inefficient system lind characterized
the agriculture of northem and easter Evrope for centres In
England it bad never been vniversal and had from sn early date
Deen subject to erosion at the edges, giving way by agreement
‘among tenants and by compulsion from landlords to compact en-