Agricultural Sustainability and Open-Field Farming in England 249the community, market goods were bought in, and there were also significant
commodity trades, for example in seeds. Nevertheless, it was fundamentally
unsuited to and therefore unsustainable in the context of a market economy which
emphasized the virtues of regional and local specialization. This is what emerged
from the economic conditions of the century or so after 1650 and which in the
midland counties of England tended to suit livestock farming and its end products
ranging from meat and wool to milk. On the heavy clays of the English midlands
the production of turnips, which was increasingly transforming light soil areas
such as Norfolk, was inappropriate. In contrast, the increasingly developing
exchange economy, which was underpinned by river navigation improvements,
canals and turnpike roads, suggested the virtues of increased specialization which
in the study area pointed to the advantages of a grass-based agricultural economy.
From the 17th century, and probably even earlier in some parts, the pressure built
up sufficiently to suggest that the adaptations to the system we have described were
inadequate. Enclosure and the ending of common property rights in favour of
separate and individual ownership became the order of the day. A rising tide of
opinion from the 17th century onwards and culminating in Arthur Young’s invec-
tive against open-field agriculture and the ‘Goths and Vandals’ who managed them
in the 1760s and 1770s convincingly championed the benefits of farming in sev-
eralty (entirely private farming) (Mingay, 1975, p99). While the potential costs
deterred (or at least deferred) enclosure, in the end market forces could not easily
be resisted whatever the potential threat to the rural community (Mingay, 1984,
pp96, 117).
In the light of the price trends we have discussed, pastoral farming made eco-
nomic sense in the period leading up to the mid-18th century, especially on the
heavy clays of the study area, the English midland counties. The pressure to con-
vert to pasture inevitably increased the pressure to enclose (Turner, 1980, ch 6).
Ecological issues also intruded, particularly the management of animals. Breed
management could improve the productivity of a flock or herd by matching breed
and use – for example by developing specialized cattle breeds for dairying, or by
using early maturing animals in a feeding/fatting system. But communal grazing
was a barrier to the improvement of livestock through selective breeding. In addi-
tion, disease control became increasingly important as the value of the stock
increased, but this was difficult to undertake with communal grazing. We are
uncertain of the extent to which communal regulations of stock density of the sort
that we have already discussed were on their own sufficient to maintain the quality
of stock, though we also have spasmodic indications of specific regulations that
were introduced. For example, regulations were put in place at Mountsorrell in
Leicestershire, specifically banning sheep with scab and infectious cattle from graz-
ing on the commons (Leicestershire Archives, DE 40/46/3). Within the old sys-
tem, any change in animal husbandry relied on the efforts of the entire community,
including those with little interest in the new ways. Individuals had insufficient
daily control of their animals to maintain standards that were relatively easy to
achieve on enclosed farms. A system reliant on communal action was no longer