British Agricultural Revolution - Fences and Enclosures

Fences and Enclosures

To manage agricultural land and livestock productively they usually have to be separated. Domesticated livestock if let loose can and often destroy or damage a crop or over graze a pasture. Historically, the control of animals has often meant the hiring of a pig, cow, sheep, horse herders to control the movements of the animals. To minimize cost, herds of a particular village were often combined to allow less herders. Often the animals were brought back to village at night for fertilizing, feeding, milking, shearing, slaughtering or shelter. Flocks of livestock were often put in small fenced fields at night to spread their manure there. The manure came from digested food eaten by the livestock in a large pasture or fallow area during the day. Fences consisting of wooden stakes, rocks, hedges and later metal fences of netting and barbed wire minimized the need for these herders. Fences nearly always marked the boundaries of different farm properties that were bought, sold or rented to different farmers. These separate fields in turn allowed farmers to use more labor or capital intensive techniques to grow more food. Since Yeomen and husbandmen did most of the farm work with their own family and a few hired workers, more productive farms allowed more "extras" to be bought by the families and workers. These in turn provided the incentives needed to grow more food.

Fences are often needed to improve livestock herds. Selected animals are chosen and bred through several generations to develop a particular breed. These animals need to be raised separately from common flocks to control the selective breeding cycle. Often selected horse studs, bulls, rams, boars, roosters, etc. are bought and bred with the goal of improving the herds. Often "choice" animals are bred to other animals as a source of income.

Prior to the 18th century, agriculture had been much the same across Europe since the Middle Ages. The open field system was essentially feudal, with many subsistence farmers-cropping strips of land in one of three or four large fields held in common and splitting up the products likewise. The work was typical performed under the auspices of the Aristocracy or the Catholic Church who owned much of the land.

Beginning as early as the 12th century, some of the common fields in England tilled under the traditional open field system were enclosed into individually owned fields. The Black Death in 1349 and on essentially broke up the feudal system in England. To get more yield from a farm required a more secure control of the land—improvements are seldom made to "community" or commonly owned property. Many farms were bought by Yeomen who enclosed their property and improved the use of their land. Other husbandmen rented property they "share cropped" with the owners of the land. The process of enclosing property accelerated in the 15th and 16th centuries. This led to some villagers losing their land and their grazing rights and left many unemployed. English Poor Laws were enacted to help get over these adjustments and many started migrating to the cities looking for work. Only a few found work in the (increasingly mechanized) enclosed farms for good. Many relocated to the cities or colonies to try to find their fortune or work in the emerging factories of the Industrial Revolution. Many of these enclosures were accomplished by acts of Parliament in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some of the practices of enclosures were denounced by the Church, and legislation was drawn up against it; but the developments in agricultural mechanization during the 16–18th century required large, enclosed fields to be successfully workable to provide more food for all. All this controversy led to a series of government acts, culminating in the General Enclosure Act of 1801, which sanctioned large-scale land reform.

By the end of the 18th century the process of enclosure was largely complete.