There is yet another respect in which Norfolk agriculture shows a difference, but of degree, not kind, from other common-field agriculture. Complete enclosure of common-field arable involves three processes-- (1) The laying together of scattered properties, and consequent abolition of intermixture of properties and holdings; (2) The abolition of common rights; (3) The hedging and ditching of the separate properties. This third process is the actual “enclosing” which gives its name to a series of processes which it completes. But sometimes the hedging and ditching takes place independently of the other two processes, and strips of an acre, two or more acres, and even half-an-acre are enclosed in the middle of the common-fields, and, what is more remarkable, the little enclosed strips are sometimes the property of several individuals. In the collection of maps of open field parishes belonging to certain Oxford Colleges, published by Mr. J. L. G. Mowat, several such instances may be noticed. Such enclosures were at first commonable; but common rights were of course exercised over them with greater difficulty than over the open parts of the enclosed fields, a fact on which the above quoted opinion on the Barn farm at Elmstone Hardwicke incidentally throws some light. The maintenance of these common rights is a sort of test of the democratic vigour of the village, and it may be noticed that old enclosures subject to common rights were particularly numerous in Yorkshire. Norfolk was remarkable for the extent to which actual hedging and ditching preceded legal enclosure. The Board of Agriculture reporter says, “for notwithstanding common rights for great cattle exist in all of them,[33] and even sheep-walk privileges in many, yet the natural industry of the people is such, that wherever a person can get four or five acres together, he plants a white-thorn hedge round it, and sets an oak at every rod distance, which is consented to by a kind of general courtesy from one neighbour to another.”[34] [33] _I.e._, of the enclosures he is going to describe. [34] Nathaniel Kent, “Norfolk,” p. 22. Two Acts incidentally show to what an extent such hedges enclosed lands belonging to two or more proprietors. One Norfolk Act has the provision, “All enclosures where two or more proprietors are connected and where the property is not separated by a hedge or ditch shall be deemed to be Common Field.” The same clause differently expressed occurs in the Act for Ormesby and Scratby (1842, c. 9): “All old enclosures within the said parishes in which there are lands belonging to different proprietors, shall be deemed to be open Fields.” A brief account of a surviving Norfolk open field parish is given in Appendix E., p. 331. CHAPTER IX. 13 GEO. III. C. 81.