Perhaps still more conclusive are the following decrees of the legislative body of Massachusetts, which Mr. Adams quotes. In the spring of 1643 the Massachusetts General Court ordered “For preventing disorder in corn feilds wᶜʰ are inclosed in common ... that those who have the greater quantity in such fields shall have power to order the whole, notwithstanding any former order to the contrary, & that every one who hath any part in such common feild shall make and maintaine the fences according to their severall quantities.” But in the autumn of the same year, the Act was passed:--“Whereas it is found by experience that there hath bene much trouble and difference in severall townes about the Manner of planting, sowing, & feeding of common corne ffeilds & that upon serious consideration wee find no general order can provide for the best improvement of every such common feild, by reason that some consists onely of plowing ground, some haveing a great part fit onely for planting, some of meadowe and feeding ground; also so that such an order as may be very wholesome & good for one feild may bee exceeding preiudiciall & inconvenient for another, it is therefore ordered, that where the commoners cannot agree about the manner of improvement of their feild, either concerning the kind of graine that shalbee sowen or set therein, or concerning the time and manner of feeding the herbage thereof, that then such persons in the severall townes that are deputed to order the prudenciall affaires thereof, shall order the same, or in case where no such are, then the maior portion of the freemen, who are hereby enioyned wᵗʰ what convenient speed they may to determine any such difference as may arise upon any information given them by the said commoners; & so much of any former order as concerns the improvement of common feilds & that is hearby provided for, is hearby repealed.” (“Village Communities of Cape Ann and Salem.”) CHAPTER XVII. THE PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE WITHOUT PARLIAMENTARY SANCTION. A. FROM 1845 ONWARDS. Any statistical account of enclosure without Parliamentary sanction must necessarily be vague in comparison with the statements which it is possible to make of enclosure by Act of Parliament, and must consist of inferences from evidence of varying value. And, naturally, the evidence in general becomes scantier in proportion as the period investigated is more remote.