The date of the enclosure of the intermixed arable and meadow land is thus fixed within certain broad limits. It did not begin till “long past the pacification of the Borders, by the union of the two crowns.” It took some time to effect the pacification of the Borders, even after the accession of James I. made it possible; “long past” that event is a vague date, but may very well bring us at least as late as the date when the enclosure of the common fields of Durham is supposed to have begun, “soon after the Restoration.” It is certain, further, from Eden’s information, that enclosure was going on steadily right through the second half of the eighteenth century, but by no means complete in 1795. The high prices of the war period would have greatly stimulated the movement, for it is obvious that if rents were thereby doubled both for open and enclosed land, the gross profit of enclosing would also be doubled; the net gain probably more than doubled. When Wordsworth wrote, the open fields were apparently still fairly numerous, but they had become a mere survival. The date of the enclosure of this district is, however, the least interesting of the inferences to be drawn. We find that up to the union of the Crowns, cultivation was carried on by a system very closely resembling the “run-rig” of the Hebrides. Groups of four tenants combined together, and yoked their horses to a common plough, and equally divided the holding between them, each tenant having his equal share in all parts of the holding. We next find that on the decay of this co-aration, for a long period, varying in duration in different parishes, holdings remained intermixed, but it seems clear that as in the one surviving Devonshire open field, and probably as in Lancashire, common rights were not exercised over the arable fields; though it might happen that besides the “ranes,” the grassy balks between the strips of arable land, there might be considerable stretches of grass amidst the arable field which was used for a common pasture. Lastly, we find that open, intermixed arable land and meadows, having this history, passes into a state of enclosure where increase of population, agricultural progress, and the increasing value of land make enclosure sufficiently profitable, by a gradual, piecemeal process, without the need for Act of Parliament, or reference to a Commission, or any combined resolution on the part of the lord and tenants of a manor.