contemporary evidence is
attempted.

The evidence is in many respects imperfect. It would be of great
value, for instance, to have access to records of grain production
over an area extensive enough, and for a long enough period, to
furnish reliable statistical indications of the trend of productivity.
It would be helpful to have exact information about the amount of land
converted from arable to pasture in each decade of the period under
consideration, and to know to what extent and at what dates land was
reconverted to tillage after having been laid to grass. There are no
records to supply most of this information. It is possible that the
materials for a statistical study of soil productivity are in
existence, but up to the present time they have not been published,
and it is doubtful if this deficiency will be supplied. It is even
more doubtful whether more can be learned about the rate of conversion
of arable land to pasture than is now known, and this is little.
Professor Gay has made a careful study of the evidence on this
question, and has analysed the reports of the government commissions
for enforcing the husbandry statutes before 1600,[9] and Miss Leonard
has made the returns of the commission of 1630 for Leicestershire
available.[10] The conditions under which these commissions worked
make the returns somewhat unreliable even for the years covered by
their reports, and much interpolation is necessary, as there are
serious gaps in the series of years for which returns are made. For
dates outside of the period 1485-1630 we must rely entirely on
literary references. Unsatisfactory as our statistical information is
on this important question, it is far more complete than the evidence
on the subject of the reconversion to tillage of arable land which had
been turned into pasture.

It is to the unfortunate social consequences of enclosure that we owe
the abundance of historical material on this subject. Undoubtedly much
land was converted to pasture in a piece-meal fashion, as small
holders saw the possibility of making the change quietly, and without
disturbing the rest of the community. If enclosure had taken no other
form than this, no storm of public protest would have risen, to
express itself in pamphlets, sermons, statutes and government reports.
Enclosure on a large scale involved dispossession of the inhabitants,
and a complete break with traditional usage. For this reason the
literature of the subject i