Elmstone Hardwicke is an extremely interesting example of the common field system in a state of natural decay. Very nearly the whole parish belongs to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but the holdings are intermixed and in small parcels, over a large part, perhaps 1000 acres, of the parish, the farms having been granted on leases of three lives. The farmers would be glad to consolidate their holdings and enclose, but the Ecclesiastical Commissioners effectually discourage this, as I was told, by exorbitant demands for increase of rent. On the other hand, I was informed that the Commissioners themselves desired to enclose, but did not care for the expense of proceeding by Act of Parliament, and they were endeavouring to obtain their object by refusing to “re-life,” in order that the leases might fall in, and be converted into leases for short terms that might be made to terminate simultaneously. Thus an old farmer who had a lease of 60 acres in 100 different parcels scattered over the common fields, informed me of the negotiations that had been entered into with him. He was by no means disposed to readily part with his lease, as he had two good lives remaining, both being his nephews, one aged 40 and the other 50. “They’ll both mak’ ’ighty,” he said, that being his own age, though he looked a score of years younger. This one farmer still (in 1899) followed what had been the customary course of cultivation for the parish--a four years course of wheat, beans, wheat, fallow; this being a modification of a still earlier course of wheat, beans, barley, fallow, the soil being more suitable to wheat than to barley. The other farmers followed no fixed rule, each one cultivating his farm as he chose, subject, however, to the right that was still recognised and exercised, that each occupier could turn horses, cattle and sheep on to the common fields after harvest until the first of November. In consequence of the abandonment of the traditional course of cultivation the common use of the fallow-field has been dropped by general consent, for the last forty or fifty years. The institution of the field jury has also disappeared; though the above-mentioned old farmer still posts the notices declaring the fields open or closed, and so may be said to fill the post of “foreman of the fields,” he does so by right of inheritance rather than of election, in succession to his father. Various controversies have arisen recently in Elmstone Hardwicke with regard to the rights of various persons interested. I have referred above to the case of the farmer who, in the spring of 1899, occupying a “headland” in the common fields on which various strips belonging to his neighbours abutted, instead of following the customary practice and waiting to plough till the last, ploughed his headland before the abutting lands were ploughed, and then sued for damages when his neighbours turned their ploughs on his land.