“_West Devonshire._ This district has no traces of common fields. The cultivated lands are all enclosed, mostly in well sized enclosures; generally large in proportion to the sizes of farms. They have every appearance of having been formed from a state of common pasture; in which state, some considerable part of the District still remains; and what is observable, the better parts of these open commons have evidently been heretofore in a state of aration; lying in obvious ridges and furrows; with generally the remains of hedgebanks, corresponding with the ridges, and with faint traces of buildings. “From these circumstances it is understood by some men of observation, that these lands have formerly been in a state of permanent inclosure, and have been thrown up again, to a state of commonage, through a decrease in the population of the country. “But from observations made in different parts of Devonshire, these appearances, which are common, perhaps, to every part of the county, would rather seem to have arisen out of a custom, peculiar perhaps to this part of the island, and which still remains in use, of lords of manors having the privileges of letting portions of the common lands, lying within their respective precincts, to tenants, for the purpose of taking one or more crops of corn, and then suffering the land to revert to a state of grass and commonage. “In the infancy of society, and while the country remained in the forest state, this was a most rational and eligible way of proceeding. The rough sides of the dells and dingles with which it abounds were most fit for the production of wood; the flatter, better parts of the surface of the country were required for corn and pasturage; and how could a more ready way of procuring both have been fallen upon than that of giving due portions of it to the industrious part of the inhabitants, to clear away the wood and adjust the surface, and after having reaped a few crops of corn to pay the expense of cultivation, to throw it up to grass, before it had become too much exhausted to prevent its becoming, in a few years, profitable sward? In this manner the county would be supplied progressively as population increased, with corn and pasturage, and the forests be converted, by degrees, into common pasture. “The wild or unreclaimed lands being at length gone over in this way, some other source of arable crops would be requisite. Indeed, before this could take place, the pasture grounds would be disproportionate to the corn lands; and out of these circumstances, it is highly probable, arose the present Inclosures.” (“Rural Economy of the West of England,” 1795, p. 31.) The same custom was observed in Cornwall by G. B. Morgan, the Board of Agriculture Reporter. (“Agriculture of Cornwall,” p. 46.)