18
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
unenclosed suggests, what was indeed a fact, the continuance of
the open field system in these parts.
The far-reaching changes in both agriculture and population
density that occurred during the following century must be
considered in relation to the wheat prices and the Industrial
Revolution. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
price of wheat in the County had reached an exceedingly high
level. This was, to a certain extent, fostered by the conditions
arising from the Napoleonic wars, and was later subject to a
disastrous fall—a fall accelerated by the influx, in later years,
of trans-Atlantic wheat. The effect of these radical changes
in the price of this commodity cannot be over-estimated in any
account of one of the most agriculturally-minded counties of
England. We should expect to find the influence of the several
different soils rendered exceedingly clear during this period of
agricultural fluctuation; such an expectation is certainly
fulfilled.
It is rarely possible to obtain satisfactory agricultural data
for the years before 1867, although some accurate information
regarding the preceding thirty years may be obtained from an
inspection of the tithe maps drawn up during the late thirties.
Before this date, however, an effect of the high wheat prices
may be discerned in the fate of those commons which remained
unenclosed during the final decades of the eighteenth century.
It was suggested that the several commons existing in this
condition throughout the Boulder Clay and sandy soil areas
were ignored because of their comparatively infertile soil.
The explanation put forward for the few unenclosed commons
within the London Clay area was that, here in a pastoral region,
differences in soil texture would not be of such importance,
only the exceedingly poorer districts remaining unenclosed.
By the time of the earliest six-inch O.S. maps (50's) the majority
of the unenclosed commons in the former districts survived
only in name, their place usually being taken by many small
fields. We are thus led to conclude that these enclosures took
place during the early years of the century20 at a time when
wheat prices were excessively high. It is also significant that
the new fields are often small, and it is not unreasonable to
20 i.e., During the period of the early nineteenth century Parliamentary enclosures.