e comment made is that "the crops
bear quite a new face." The common field of Brancaster before
enclosure in 1755 "was in an open, rude bad state; now in five or six
regular shifts."[146]

Hitherto there had been only one way of restoring fertility to land;
converting it to pasture and leaving it under grass for a prolonged
period. Now it could be speedily improved and used intensively. Arthur
Young describes the modern method of improvement in his account of the
changes made in Norfolk husbandry before 1771:

From forty to fifty years ago, all the northern and western and a
great part of the eastern tracts of the county were sheep walks,
let so low as from 6 _d._ to 1_s._ 6 _d._ and 2 _s._ an acre.
Much of it was in this condition only thirty years ago. The
improvements have been made by the following circumstances.

First. By enclosing without the assistance of Parliament.

Second. By a spirited use of marl and clay.

Third. By the introduction of an excellent course of crops.

Fourth. By the introduction of turnips well hand-hoed.

Fifth. By the culture of clover and ray-grass.

Sixth. By the lords granting long leases.

Seventh. By the country being divided chiefly into large farms.[147]

The evidence which has been examined in this monograph reveals the
far-reaching influence of soil exhaustion in English agrarian history
in the centuries before the introduction of these new crops. As the
yield of the soil declined, the ancient arable holdings proved
incapable of supporting their cultivators, and a readjustment had to
be made. The pressure upon subsistence was felt while villainage was
still in force, and the terms upon which serfdom dissolved were
influenced by this fact to an extent which has hitherto not been
recognized. The economic crisis involved in the spread of the money
economy threw into relief the destitution of the villains; and the
easy terms of the cash payments which were substituted for services
formerly due, the difficulty with which holders for land could be
obtained on any terms, the explicit references to the poverty of whole
communities at the time of the commutation of their customary
services, necessitate the abandonment of the commonly accepted view
that growing prosperity and the desire for better social status
explain the substitution of money payments for labor services in the
fourteenth century. The spread of the mo