“In many instances they have suffered considerably for four, five, or six years. From the first starting the project of an Enclosure Act to the final award, has, in numerous cases, taken two, three, four, and even five or six years; their management is deranged; not knowing where their future lands will be allotted, they save all their dung till much of it is good for little; they perform all the operations of tillage with inferior attention; perhaps the fields are cross-cropped and exhausted, and not well recovered under a course of years. Rents are greatly raised and too soon; so that if they do not absolutely lose five years they at least suffer a great check. In point of profit, comparing the old with the new system, attention must be paid to their capitals; open field land is managed (notwithstanding the inconvenience of its pieces) usually with a less capital than enclosures; and though the _general_ profit of the latter exceeds that of the former, yet this will entirely depend on the capital being adequate. In cases where the new enclosures are laid down to grass, all this becomes of tenfold force; to stock rich grass lands demands a far greater sum than open field arable; the farmer may not possess it; this has often happened, and drove them to seek other investments, giving way to new-comers more able to undertake the new system introduced; and if profit be measured by a percentage on the capital employed, the old system might, at the old rents, exceed the profits of the new; and this is certainly the farmers’ view of the comparison. He also who had given the attention of a life to the regular routine of open field arable, without 10 acres of grass ever having been in his occupation, may find himself much at a loss in the regular purchase and sale of live stock, the profit of which depends so much on habitual skill. Add to all this the previous circumstance of laying down to grass, the business of all others of which farmers know the least, of which I have many times seen in new enclosures striking instances; and if all these points be duly considered, we shall not find much reason to be surprised at the repugnance shown by many farmers to the idea of enclosing.” (Pp. 31, 32.)