Subject to these deductions, the whole of the open commonable lands and many of the old enclosures, after being surveyed and valued, and after roads, where necessary, had been diverted or newly set out, were redistributed among the old proprietors so as to give each his proportional share, as far as possible in the most convenient manner. This was both a lengthy and a delicate task, but it was finally completed in 1898, six years after the matter first came before the Board of Agriculture. Each several proprietor was then required to fence his allotment in the manner prescribed by the commissioners who make the survey and award. The cost of the survey and allotment usually works out at about £1 per acre; the cost of fencing may be a great deal more. Though the Parliamentary expenses are now trifling, the total cost of abolishing the “system of mingle-mangle,” as Carew called it in 1600, in any parish where it still exists, is not to be lightly faced in times of agricultural depression. CHAPTER III. THE WESSEX TYPE OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY. TWO DORSET MANORS--STRATTON AND GRIMSTONE. Dorchester is bounded on the south by Fordington Field. The parish of Fordington, up to the year 1875, was unenclosed; it lay almost entirely open, and was divided into about eighty copyholds, intermixed and intercommonable, the manor belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall. But in 1875 the Duchy authorities bought out the copyholders, and the old system disappeared. About three or four miles from Dorchester, along the road to Maiden Newton and Yeovil, are the two adjoining villages of Stratton and Grimstone, forming together the Prebend of Stratton, belonging till recently to the See of Sarum, which have only been enclosed since 1900. The enclosure was effected without any Parliamentary sanction; it was brought about, I am told by the present lord of the two manors, by the refusal of the copyholders, who held by a tenure of lives, to “re-life.” In consequence, all the copyholds, except a few cottages, have fallen into the hands of the lord of the manor; all Grimstone has been let to a single farmer, and Stratton divided into three or four farms. Besides the very late survival of the common field system in these two manors, there are two other features which make them specially notable. In the first place they are, agriculturally, thoroughly characteristic of the Wessex type of open field village, the type that prevailed over Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset. In the second place, the manorial system of village government survived with equal vigour; the proceedings of the manorial courts and the customs of tillage and pasturage forming manifestly only two aspects of one and the same organisation. It is fortunate that the court-rolls for the last two hundred years have been preserved, and that they are in the safe custody of the present lord of the manor.