ENCLOSURES : ESSEX AGRICULTURE, 1500-1900. 15
of woodland are also returned, we can eliminate the compli-
cations introduced by forest in our analysis. It will be noticed
that, with the exception of the parklands on the accidented
tracts of the Rayleigh area, eastern Essex and the main mass
of the Boulder Clay was free from extensive woodland areas.
The Forest of Essex had shrunk to the extreme south-west.
In addition to these details, the land-holders are very fully
returned, payments down to a few pence being recorded.
Dividing the area of the parishes by the number of land-holders
we obtained figures which have been plotted in figure 3, where 
parishes having average holdings of thirty acres or less are
distinguished from those where 100 areas or more was the
average size. An intermediate region is also distinguished.
Since, almost without exception, the smaller holdings were
found throughout the valuable sandy soil and Boulder Clay areas
it appears that these districts were the main regions of arable
farming—the hop and corn land of Norden. Recalling the poor
quality of Essex Wool, it seems impossible to reconcile these
small holdings of the north-west with the high value of the area.
Opposed to this district the London Clay region to the south-
east showed low value, large holdings and a low population
density, which suggest pastoral farming. Bearing in mind the
dairy farming and oat-crops of this district (Norden) it seems
probable that sheep and cattle were found there in large numbers.
London at this time was beginning to exercise its influence
on south-east and south-west Essex, and, in addition to pro-
viding a market for the crops grown on the remaining areas
of arable land in the south-west, no doubt the proximity of the
metropolis made it profitable for the farmers of the London
Clay area to interest themselves, to an increasing extent, in
dairy farming as well as in sheep farming. The employees of
the Colchester wool-trade would have provided a further market
for dairy products. There are frequent instances in the records
of Elizabethan times of coast-wise shipments of cheese, butter,
and other foodstuffs to the London and Colchester districts.17
This is in accord with our deductions that the London Clay
area was becoming a pastoral country.
At the close of the following century Vancouver (1795)
17 e.g., Exch. K. R. Port Bks. dlxxxviii. 13.