Tingewick, Bucks. Milk to be had at 1_d._ a quart before; not to be had now at any rate. Passenham, Northamptonshire. (The poor) deprived of their cows, and great sufferers by the loss of their hogs. Tulvy, Bedfordshire. Cows lessened from 110 to 40. Letcomb, Berkshire. The poor can no longer keep a cow, and they are therefore now maintained by the parish.[65] [65] “General Report on Enclosures,” pp. 150–152. Alconbury, Huntingdon. (1791, c. 70.) Several who kept cows before were, upon enclosure, forced to part with them, and have kept none since. The cottage allotments going to the landlords were thrown together, and the inhabitants left without cows or land. Those who had allotments given in lieu of their rights, not being able to enclose them,[66] were forced to sell, and became as the rest in this respect. Before enclosure milk could readily be bought, poor people could lay out a half-penny or a penny every day, but nothing of the sort could be got since.[67] [66] Because of the expense. [67] “General Report,” p. 154. With regard to Buckingham in general, we have the following statement from a later survey for the Board of the County:-- “The poor and persons with little capital (such as butchers, common shepherds, etc.) derive benefit from open fields and commons, by being enabled to keep horses, cows, and sheep.... It will be difficult to prove that in any case the poor have been benefited (by enclosure). No instances of benefit on this score have been stated to me. On the contrary, an increase of poor (_i.e._, of paupers) has been the general complaint.” Similar evidence is given by two professional Enclosure Commissioners. Mr. Forster, of Norwich, “lamented that he had been accessory to injuring 2000 poor people, at the rate of twenty families per parish. Numbers in the practice of feeding the commons cannot prove their right; and many, indeed most who have allotments, have not more than one acre, which being insufficient for the man’s cow, both the cow and land are usually sold to opulent farmers. The right sold before the allotment produced much less than the allotment after it, but the money is dissipated, doing them no good when they cannot vest it in stock.”[68] [68] “General Report,” p. 157. Mr. Ewen, another Commissioner, “observed that in most of the enclosures he has known the poor man’s allotment and cow are sold five times in six before the award is signed.” A third Commissioner, Mr. Algar, declared that he made it a practice to give an allotment whenever a cottager could merely prove that he had been in the practice of cutting turf. But one wonders whether Mr. Algar did not find this custom of his prejudicial to the demand for his professional services.