Parliamentary enclosure since 1873 has reduced the area of common fields by 14,842 ─────── 100,526 ═══════ The final remainder represents our corrected estimate of the area of common fields arable and commonable meadows of intermixed ownership which would now exist if there had been no enclosure except by Act of Parliament since about the year 1845. The total area of such fields and meadows actually existing almost certainly does not exceed 30,000 acres. We therefore may conclude that not less than 70,000 acres have been enclosed as the result of the consolidation of farms and properties and voluntary agreements and exchanges, since about the year 1845, and that not more than 100,000 acres have been thus enclosed. The total area of common fields enclosed by Acts since 1845, together with such meadows and commons as were enclosed together with common arable fields, is 139,517 acres. It would therefore appear that such voluntary methods of enclosure have accounted in this period for an area something between half as large an area as Enclosure Acts and five-sevenths of that area. The proportion of villages in which common fields have been entirely got rid of by voluntary enclosure during the same period would of course be smaller; because wherever common fields exist they are subject to continual diminution by gradual enclosure; and the final application of an Act of Parliament may be merely the _coup de grace_. Curiously, also, it may happen that a practically complete enclosure may be effected, and years later resort be had to an Act, as in the cases of Hildersham (Cambridge), and Sutton (Northampton). B. BEFORE 1845. The agricultural survey of Great Britain carried out by the Board of Agriculture in 1793 furnishes us with much information about the state of enclosure of some counties, and with scraps of information about others. Where the information is fullest it may take the form of estimates of the total area enclosed or open, or the form of information with regard to particular villages. By correlating the information thus supplied with that furnished by the Acts themselves, and from other sources, we can in some cases obtain a fairly full account of the enclosure history of a county. BEDFORDSHIRE. The “General Report on the Agriculture of Bedfordshire” gives the following estimate of the condition of the county (p. 11):-- Acres. Enclosed meadow, pasture and arable 68,100 Woodland 21,900 Common fields, common meadows, commons and waste 217,200 ─────── Total 307,200 ═══════